The demonopathology of impotence

Impotence in older men. A newly recognized problem

Impotence is gaining recognition among the health-care professionals as a valid, complex problem. The prevalence of impotence increases with age. Treatment of impotence in older men is based on the results of extensive evaluation and individualized treatment. Nurses need to be aware of evaluative and treatment options and interpret these to clients, as well as provide a supportive atmosphere for discussion.

Female partner perception of Small-Carrion implant

Thirty-one female partners of penile implant recipients were interviewed postoperatively. A majority of women exhibited anxiety regarding the outcome of the surgery. Preoperative visit with the urologist by almost 50% of the women benefitted the couple's sexual satisfaction. It is suggested that the surgeon include the female partner in the preoperative consultation.

WITCHCRAFT, PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND HALLUCINATIONS

The urgent need to act and explain one's reasons is less pressing now in connection with witchcraft than in the days when it seemed to present an immediate menace to society. It has however always evoked intense reactions without a corresponding intense examination of the available evidence. The subject seems to invite partisan treatment.

KORO--A CULTURE-BOUND DEPERSONALIZATION SYNDROME

The term “koro” refers to an unfamiliar state of acute anxiety with partial depersonalization leading to the conviction of penile shrinkage and to fears of dissolution. Among the South Chinese (Cantonese) koro is known as suk-yeong. Van Brero in 1897 first discussed the psychopathology of this syndrome on the basis of cases described in South Celebes. He thought it was a peculiar manifestation of obsessional-compulsive illness. After many years the syndrome again received attention from Van Wulftten Palthe (1934), who concluded that it was an unusual form of anxiety neurosis. Slot in the same year also gave an account of it in the Dutch literature. Van Wulftten Palthe (1936, 1937) further mentioned the existence of corresponding female cases who complained of shrinking of the vulval labia and the breasts. He made a distinction between a real anxiety state and an imaginary organic illness based on folk belief, comparable for example to the popular notion in Southern Europe that urinating against the wind would cause a person to “catch a cold” in the metaphorical sense of getting gonorrhoea.