A clinical study of “coital anxiety” in male potency disorders

Abstract

Many authorities of widely different psychiatric schools from the psychoanalytic, to the behavioral, cite anxiety as being the most important cause of male potency disorders, Fenichel [1], Stekel [2], Vanderveldt and Odenwald [3], Gutheil [4], Allen [5], Stanfford-Clark [6], Rachman [7], Wolpe [8], respectively, to mention only a representative sample. In a previous study, however, the author was unable to demonstrate any statistical association between “anxiety” (or “neurosis”) as measured by (a) a standard psychological test (The N.S.Q.—Scheier and Cattell [9]) or (b) as judged clinically and “psychogenic” potency disorders (Cooper [10]). The author concluded that “neurosis” or neurotic tendencies may be associated only rarely with “psychogenic potency disorders”. Another possible interpretation of this seeming paradox might be that standard psychological tests, although helpful in confirming and quantifying clinical neuroses, in general, may be inappropriate and even misleading in the case of psychogenic potency disorders. According as a working tool, the author set out to develop and define a psychosomatic concept of “coital anxiety” and to examine its clinical relevance and usefulness, especially as a prognastic pointer in male potency disorders.