Treating marriage as "the sick entity": Gender, emotional life, and the psychology of marriage improvement in postwar Britain.

This essay examines how marriage relationships came to be constituted as therapeutic objects after WWII and the impact that this had on British postwar understandings of the meaning of marriage. In contrast to prevailing concerns during the interwar decades about sexual dissatisfaction as the chief impediment to marital stability, post-WWII marriage counselors and therapists framed marital harmony as dependent upon spouses' psychological maturity. An inability to sustain a stable marriage was interpreted as a sign of arrested development, most often stemming from a dysfunctional relationship with one or both parents in childhood. This essay reveals that the equal-but-different gender roles that were the cornerstone of the modern "companionate" marriage were crucial to marital counselors and therapists' psychological understanding of marriage as an interpersonal relationship during the decades following WWII. Practitioners gauged therapeutic success not only in accordance with whether or not couples stayed married, but also in terms of the extent to which spouses enthusiastically accepted the adult masculine and feminine spousal roles that the male-breadwinning nuclear family required. Moreover, therapists' valuing of the emotional dimensions of marriage made "natural" feminine attributes-such as a presumed ease in establishing loving relationships-a centrally valued aspect of therapeutic work and intimate life more broadly. Far from having a potentially disruptive impact on the presumed naturalness of gender difference (which had been a focus of criticism of psychoanalysis during the interwar decades), the psychoanalytic techniques that were developed to treat marriage problems after WWII were profoundly normalizing.

Historical revolutions in sex therapy: a critical examination of men's sexual dysfunctions and their treatment.

History, recent and ancient, presents innumerable methods intended to ensure or restore male sexual performance. Although these methods have regularly claimed to be "revolutionary," they have often been remarkably similar, and of questionably efficacy. This article provides a critical account of key historical trends in the treatment of male sexual dysfunctions in order to contextualize and critique the current treatment field. The author uses historical analysis to contextualize contemporary sex therapy techniques, arguing that even clinically verified contemporary revolutions, such as the advent of Viagra and similar drugs, may not present broadly efficacious standalone cures. Using critical historical analysis to illustrate the limitations of single-method treatments, the article argues for the value of comprehensive, biopsychosocial therapy methods. A common tendency--to seek a 'magic bullet' solution to sexual dysfunctions--is apparent throughout history, the author argues. While Viagra differs biomedically from historical treatments, it may appeal to the same logic, raising the question of whether it constitutes a truly revolutionary development in treatment. The article concludes with a set of recommendations regarding the implementation of biopsychosocial practice in sex therapy.