Group Treatment of Situationally Orgasmic Women

Abstract

It appears that an all women's group treatment program is successful for two-thirds of the women who enter the program in terms of teaching them to experience orgasm with their partner more frequently and in different ways and that these changes are maintained. The program is most effective for those women in casual relationships and relationships which are of a committed or very serious nature but which have not been in existence for over 1 1/2 years. In those relationships that are committed, but over 3 years' duration, results are more mixed. It may be possible that additional conjoint treatment may increase the effectiveness of the program for these couples, but this hypothesis requires further research.

The Future of Sex Therapy: Specialization or Marginalization?

“…The necessity for the Masters and Johnson practice of a ''double couple'' format was also challenged in the early 1970s by the growth of group treatments for anorgasmia (Barbach, 1974), for premature ejaculation (Zeiss, 1978;Zilbergeld, 1975), and for erectile dysfunction (Lobitz & Baker, 1979). Such groups were quite popular for a while and there are still women's treatment groups for a variety of sexual dysfunctions (e.g., dyspareunia and vaginismus; Bergeron et al, 2001;van Lankveld et al, 2007), not to mention men's groups for sexual addiction (Carnes, 1983).…”

Sex Therapy

“…Treatment approaches have now been developed for such individuals (Hawton, 1985, p. 216), although these have had little evaluation. Group treatment, both of individuals, especially women with orgasmic dysfunction (Barbach, 1974;Mills and Kilman, 1982) and men with erectile or ejaculatory difficulties (Zilbergeld, 1975;Lobitz and Baker, 1979), and of couples (Leiblum, Rosen and Pierce, 1976), was introduced during the 1970s, but is now less in favour.…”

A critical assessment of the efficacy of women's groups.

“…For example, women's groups have been employed to treat women with problems in their sexual functioning. Barbach & Flaherty (1980) reported their use of an all-female group format to treat situationalry orgasmic women. They noted that it was once thought that this problem was so intertwined with couples' interpersonal functioning that women were not treatable without their partners.…”