ABSTRACT
THE disorders of sexual behaviour which have been treated by behaviour therapy include impotence, frigidity, voyeurism, fetishism, exhibitionism, homosexuality, and transvestism.
Wolpe (1958) reported the successful treatment of seven cases of impotence, using the methods of behaviour therapy, and Lazarus and Rachman (1960) give an account of a successful case treated by this method. The mean number of sessions taken to improve Wolpe's five apparently cured cases was 14·4. Seventy-five sessions were needed to produce the changes in the two much improved patients. The two latter patients were also diagnosed as suffering from inter-personal anxiety. None of the apparently cured patients had this symptom but two of them had phobias associated with their impotence. Another difference between the apparently cured and the much improved patients is to be found in their neurotic tendency scores (obtained by the Willoughby Scale). The mean score for the cured patients was much lower (26·5) than that for the improved patients (5 I ·5). These differences suggest the possibility that impotence associated with high neuroticism scores and/or inter-personal anxiety may be more resistant to behaviour therapy.
