ABSTRACT
Sex therapists from a wide variety of mental health and medical professions have creatively expanded the use of Sensate Focus over the years since Masters and Johnson published their work with primarily able-bodied, Caucasian, heterosexual couples. If the accrual of sexual tension can be coaxed and experienced in the contained setting of an intensive therapeutic arrangement, sexual partners can progress quickly; they have Mother Nature on their side. The primary relationship in sex therapy is between the partners and not so much between the clients and therapists, Masters and Johnson discovered that a dual-sex therapy team reduced unproductive and distracting transference by de-emphasizing the therapist–client interaction. In presenting the specific sexual dysfunctions, the chapter follows the sexual dysfunction categorization scheme offered by DSM-5. Merely having low sexual desire does not suffice for a diagnosis of HSDD because, as with other sexual dysfunctions in the DSM-5, the lack of fantasy/interest must cause distress to one or both partners.
