ABSTRACT
At the turn of the millennium, serious questions remain about both the understanding and the efficacy of the treatment of sexual complaints. For all the growing complexity in the conceptualization of sexuality and sexual disorders, and in spite of the proliferation of models and techniques, there is "a paucity of controlled outcome research or studies of treatment process variables in sex therapy" (Rosen & Leiblum, 1995, p. 877). Where studies do exist, they typically find only moderate levels of success. More troubling, over the last several years there has actually been a dramatic decrease in the number of outcome studies and a growing medicalization of the field (Ackerman & Carey, 1995; Hawton, 1992; Leiblum & Rosen, 1989; Schover & Leiblum 1994). As a matter of fact, a recent issue of the
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Journal of Sex Education and Therapy was devoted entirely to medical treatments heralded as a "turning point in the treatment of sexual dysfunction" (Plaut, 1998, p. 183).
