Erectile dysfunction, Impotence and Psychopathology: a psychoanalytic perspective.
Grassi, Maria*,1, Pareira, Mario2, 1 Curitiba Federal Universitiy - PR - Brazil, Curitiba, PR, Brazil2 Campinas State University - SP - Brazil, Campinas, SP, Brazil
ABSTRACT- The objective is to study psychopayhological aspects in subjects with symptoms of psychogenic erectile dysfunction (ED) from a psychoanalytic perspective. Method: Evaluation and psychotherapeutic treatment on 85 men in Brazil with diagnosis of psychogenic ED, carried out at psychiatric and urologic out-patient clinic. Results: For these men the fears associated with sexual failure reveal insecurities regarding their own masculinity, based psychically on their erection rather than on their subjectivity. Psychoterapy showed that these men's masculinity, as symptom, uses activity with erect penis as an imaginary banner of 'phallic' potency. The onset of ED raises the issue of masculinity, affecting the men's basic being and confirming the 'impotence'. We were able to observe the close correlation between sexual symptons and their counterpart in the constitution of masculine identity associated with aspects of hysteria's paradigm. Our purpose is rather to open up a field of dialogue of the 'pathos, the patient's psychic suffering and symptomatic expression.
Key words: Erectile dysfunction, Psychoanalysis, Psychopathology