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Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Psychosexual Disorders’ for class 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Psychosexual Disorders’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay on Psychosexual Disorders
Essay Contents:
- Essay on Gender Identity Disorders
- Essay on Paraphilias
- Essay on Sexual Dysfunctions
- Essay on Homosexuality
- Essay on Dhat Syndrome
- Essay on Koro
1. Essay on Gender Identity Disorders:
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Psychosexual behaviour can be divided into the following components:
(i) Gender Identity.
It is an individual’s perception and self-awareness of being male or female.
(ii) Gender Role.
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It is the behaviour that an individual engages in that identifies him or her to others as being male or female (for example, wearing dresses/makeup).
(iii) Sexual Orientation:
It is the erotic attraction that an individual feels (e.g., arousal to men. women, children, nonsexual objects etc.).
Transsexualism (Gender Dysphoria Syndrome):
The essential features of this heterogenous disorder are a persistent sense of discomfort and inappropriateness about one’s anatomic sex and a persistent wish to be rid of one’s genitals and to live as a member of the other sex.
Epidemiology:
The disorder is apparently rate. The first evidence of this disorder often appears in children. Males are commonly affected than females (the ratio varies from 8:1 to 2:1).
Clinical Picture:
Individuals with this disorder usually complain that they are uncomfortable wearing the clothes of their own anatomic sex; frequently this discomfort leads to cross-dressing. These individuals often find their genitals repugnant, which may lead to persistent requests for sex reassignment by surgical or hormonal means.
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The transsexuals may also have a high degree of concomitant psychiatric disorders, most commonly borderline, antisocial or narcissistic personality disorders, substance abuse and suicidal or self-destructive behaviour. Frequently social and occupational functioning is markedly impaired. EEG abnormalities, negative H-Y antigen test in males but positive in females have also been reported.
Learning theory models suggest that transsexuality arises from absent or inconsistent reinforcement for identification with same-sexed models.
Psychoanalytic theory argues that early deprivation of the male child by his mother leads to symbiotic merger with the mother and lack of full individuation as a separate person.
Differential Diagnosis:
Transsexuals need differentiation from:
(i) Effeminate homosexuality:
The individual displays behaviours characteristic of the opposite sex. However such individuals have no desire to be of the other anatomic sex.
(ii) Physical intersex:
The presence of abnormal sexual structures rules out the diagnosis of transsexualism.
(iii) Other individuals with a disturbed gender identity:
They may in isolated periods of stress, wish to belong to other sex and to be rid of their own genitals.
(iv) Schizophrenia.
(v) Transvestism.
Management:
Sexual reassignment to the opposite gender has been the most widely used and studied treatment modality for transsexualism. Hormonal treatment is also available.
Supportive psychotherapy serves various purposes. Behaviour therapy has also been used with success in male transsexuals in several cases.
Without treatment, the course of this disorder is chronic and unremitting.
2. Essay on Paraphilias (Sexual Deviations):
Recurrent, intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies presenting as:
Fetishism, exhibitionism, frotteurism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, cunnilingus and fellatio, transvestic fetishism, voyeurism, zoophilia, sodomy.
See Table 22.2:
Because some of these disorders are associated with non-consenting partners, they are of legal and social significance.
Paraphilias may be multiple or may coexist with other mental disorders such as Schizophrenia or various Personality disorders.
Epidemiology:
The exact prevalence is not known. Over 50 percent of these patients develop the onset of the paraphilic arousal prior to age 18.
Etiology:
(i) Biological theories:
Lesions in some parts of limbic system, temporal lobe diseases, and abnormal levels of androgens
(ii) Psychoanalytic theories:
Severe castration anxiety during the oedipal phase of development leads to the substitution of a symbolic object (inanimate or an anatomic part) for the mother, as in fetishism and transvestism.
(iii) Learning theories:
Sexual behaviour is subsequently reinforced through sexual fantasies and masturbation.
(iv) Other factors:
Impaired social and adult heterosexual relationships, faulty beliefs etc., are important in the onset of paraphilias.
Management:
Antiandrogenic medications (medroxyprogesterone acetate and cyproterone acetate) have been widely used to decrease libido. Medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) appears to act by blocking testosterone synthesis while cyproterone acetate (CPA) acts primary by blocking central and peripheral androgen receptors. Antipsychotic medications have been used to treat deviant sexual behaviour. Sexual aggressive behaviour has been treated with lithium, propranolol, carbamazepine and clonazepam.
Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy have been used with variable results.
A variety of behaviour therapies (aversive conditioning and convert sensitization) have been used to decrease deviant sexual behaviour.
3. Essay on Sexual Dysfunctions:
Human sexual functioning requires the complex interaction of the nervous, vascular and endocrine systems to produce arousal and orgasm.
Normal Human Sexual Response Cycle:
The changes in human sexual cycle are given in Table 22.3.
Sexual dysfunctions may be life-long (primary type) or develop after a period of normal sexual functioning (secondary type).
Epidemiology:
Although the exact prevalence of sexual dysfunctions is not known, the most common age at onset is early adult life, although premature ejaculation more commonly begins with the first sexual encounters. The most common age of clinical presentation is late 20s and early 30s, a few years after establishment of a sustained sexual relationship.
Etiology:
(i) Learning theory:
It proposes that sexual dysfunctions result from faulty or negative sexual experiences.
(ii) Psychoanalytic theories:
Unconscious intrapsychic conflicts deriving from critical childhood experience.
(iii) Multicausal theory:
It enlists the following factors as being etiologically relevant:
a) Lack of appropriate information about sexual functioning.
b) Unconscious guilt and anxiety concerning sex.
c) Performance anxiety.
d) Failure to communicate to one another their sexual feelings.
(iv) Other causes:
Sexual trauma (incest, rape or sexual abuse), psychiatric disorders, organic factors or their other psychosexual stresses.
Diagnosis:
See Table 22.4:
Differential Diagnosis:
(i) Physical Disorder
(ii) Mental Disorder
(iii) Inadequate Sexual Stimulation
(iv) Iatrogenic (Drug-induced).
Management:
The various psychosexual dysfunctions and their respective steps of management are given in Tables 22.5 and 22.6.
Outcome:
Good prognosis is indicated by previous normal sexual function; acute onset; short duration; high motivation; involved motivated partner; absence of other psychological problems and marked improvement in first few therapy sessions.
4. Essay on Homosexuality:
The essential features of ego-dystonic homosexuality are a desire to acquire or increase heterosexual arousal, so that heterosexual relationships can be initiated or maintained, and a sustained pattern of overt homosexual arousal that the individual explicitly states has been unwanted and a persistent source of distress.
Epidemiology:
The exact prevalence of this disorder is not known. It is assumed that 6-10% of adult males and 2-4% of adult females may be preferentially or exclusively be homosexuals.
Etiology:
(a) Biological factors:
Higher in monozygotic twins.
(b) Psychodynamic /actors:
Disturbance in the family during early development.
(c) Social learning theories:
Sexual orientation is learned primarily postpubertally as one experiences the attitudes and mores of one’s social milieu.
Diagnosis:
The individuals with this disorder is prone to dysthymic disorder, depression, anxiety, guilt and other medical illness like AIDS, hepatitis and sexually transmitted diseases. Loneliness is particularly common. ‘Homophobia’ refers to irrational fear of homosexuality and societal attitudes, including prejudice, discrimination and harassment.
Differential Diagnosis:
(i) Homosexuality that is Ego-Syntonic is not classified as a mental disorder.
(ii) Inhibited Sexual Desire
(iii) Homosexuals who develop a Major Depression.
(iv) Fetishistic Transvestism and Transsexuals.
(v) Pseudohomosexuality: In Pseudohomosexuality the primary conflicts concern power and dependency.
Management:
(i) Psychoanalysis:
Tried to change sexual- orientation by uncovering unconscious conflicts.
(ii) Behaviour Therapy:
Behaviour therapists have employed electric shocks during nude slide viewing, aversive conditioning using imagery and systematic desensitization to reduce anxiety about heterosexuality.
(iii) Treatment of associated specific problem:
Treatment of associated specific problem such as depression or schizophrenia.
5. Essay on Dhat Syndrome:
It is a true culture bound sex neurosis quite common in the natives of the Indian subcontinent (e.g., those living in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan etc.).
History:
The Sanskrit word ‘Dhatu’, according to Susruta Samhita (an ancient treatise on Indian Medicine) means the elixir which constitutes the body and has given rise to the term ‘Dhat’.
Thus the belief that the loss of semen from the body in any manner—masturbation, spermatorrhoea, nocturnal emission, premarital or extramarital relations, is the most harmful thing that can possibly happen and its preservation guarantees health and longevity.
‘Dhat Syndrome’ a term first used by N.N. Wig in 1960, is a commonly recognized clinical entity in Indian Culture.
Epidemiology:
It constitutes about 30 to 60 percent of patients presenting with a psychosexual problem. The patient is typically a young male; more likely to be married or recently married, of average or low socioeconomic status; student, labourer or farmer by occupation; comes from a rural or semi urban area and belongs to a family with conservative attitudes towards sex.
Clinical Picture:
The individuals with Dhat syndrome present with vague somatic symptoms (like fatigue, weakness, anxiety, loss of appetite, etc.), psychological, symptoms (like guilt, sad mood, lack of concentration and memory etc.) and at times, sexual dysfunctions (impotence, premature ejaculation), which the patient attributes to the passing of semen (Dhat) in urine as a direct consequence of his excessive indulgence in masturbation or sexual intercourse.
Differential Diagnosis:
(i) Physical illnesses:
Physical diseases (e.g., sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes mellitus, etc.), drugs intake (antacids, tonics, etc.) and spermatorrhoea which may produce turbidity in urine.
(ii) Psychological disorders:
The primary psychiatric illnesses.
Treatment:
The main treatment of Dhat syndrome is reeducation, counselling and reassurance. The use of antianxiety or antidepressant medication is required when the symptoms of anxiety or depression are prominent.
The associated psychosexual dysfunctions (impotence, premature ejaculation etc.) need appropriate intervention.
6. Essay on Koro:
It is culture bound syndrome seen in Malaysia, India, China and Thailand.
Epidemiology:
The exact prevalence is not known. It is a rare disorder. It may occur as epidemics in East Asia.
Clinical Picture:
According to DSM-IV, there is sudden and intense anxiety that penis (or in females, nipple and vulva) will recede into body leading to death. This belief leads to multiple psychological symptoms (e.g., Panic, Generalized anxiety, Sleep problem, Psychosexual dysfunctions etc.)
Differential Diagnosis:
From Major Psychotic Disorders.
Treatment:
Psychotherapy and anxiolytic drugs.