Lecture 9 - Sexual Disorders

• Definitional Issues
• Symptoms involve sexual behavior
• Problem of relativism

Categories of Sexual Disorders

Sexual Dysfunctions - persistent problems in normal sexual response

• Desire phase

• Arousal phase

• Orgasm phase

Paraphilias - d/os of "object choice"

• non-human objects: Fetish

• non-affectionate relationships: Sexual Sadism/Masochism

• non-consenting relationships:

Frotteurism


Exhibitionism


Voyeurism


Pedophilia

Causes of Paraphilias

• Behavioral theory

• Stoller's psychodynamic theory

Transsexualism: Gender Identity Disorder (biol. sex = psychol. sex)

Causes of Transsexualism

• environmental

• biological (related to congenital virilizing adrenal hyperplasia and androgen insensitivity syndrome?)