ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises the history and development of sensate focus. It provides a synthesis of selected publications that describe the sensate focus programme in depth. It discusses how sensate focus was created originally by Masters and Johnson (1970) to address marital sexual problems through sensual-sexual behaviour and feedback, deliberately bypassing emotional-relational patterns that might lie beneath patients’ sexual distress. It clarifies Masters and Johnson’s later amendments to their original concept, which were brought to light only decades after the original programme was published. The chapter includes a discussion of the reasons for the confusion about the goals and implementation of the programme that have been widespread and persist. The contemporary setting in which the exercises are given to clients is compared with the authors’ original, intensive, residential treatment. Detailed guidelines and steps of sensate focus are given. The concept of the body as a repository of unconscious experience that remains in the implicit memory and resurfaces in sensate focus is explained. Finally the neurobiology of loving touch, which is essential for human health, is considered and the latest research on the major role of the hormone oxytocin in couples’ sense of well-being is discussed.
