Behavioral-psychological training is an effective treatment for premature ejaculation

  Behavioral training has already been described as the preferred method of treatment for premature ejaculation. Today, I would like to introduce you to the content of behavioral training about premature ejaculation.  Premature ejaculation is a common sexual dysfunctional disease in men, with a high incidence of about 35% to 50% in adult men, accounting for more than 90% of patients with ejaculatory disorders. The etiology and pathogenesis of premature ejaculation have not been elucidated so far, and there is a lack of objective and reliable clinical detection methods and unified diagnosis and treatment standards, which makes treatment difficult and causes a greater impact on the physical and mental health and quality of life of patients. The current treatment methods mainly include topical drugs, antidepressants and surgery, but both doctors and patients are not satisfied with the clinical efficacy.  Behavioral therapy was the first method used to treat premature ejaculation and was once considered the “gold standard” for the treatment of premature ejaculation, mainly including sexual concentration training, penile squeezing therapy and stop-motion techniques. The purpose is to shift the goal of sex to the enjoyment of sexual pleasure and pleasure, through hugging, touching, massage and other tactile stimulation means to experience and enjoy the pleasure of sex, overcome the fear of sex, and establish and restore the natural response to sex. (The specific method of operation will not be introduced, and can be found online and in books.) What is important to note is the core philosophy of this approach, which is to focus on the enjoyment of sex. This core concept was inherited in the training method I designed later.  Sexual concentration training was once popular, but then it was less and less used clinically, why is that? Masters and Johnson reported that the success rate of behavioral therapy for premature ejaculation was 60-95 percent. However, its long-term efficacy is not satisfactory, with the success rate dropping to 20-30% after 3 years. Therefore, although these methods are easy and safe, they have been used less and less in clinical practice because of their time consuming and uncertain long-term efficacy.  However, there are still many scholars who insist that the best treatment for premature ejaculation is still psychological and behavioral treatment. The results of a recent survey also support this view. Waldinger and Schweitzer from abroad recommended that the American Psychiatric Association use a new classification of premature ejaculation when it issued the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V-R). This method classifies premature ejaculation into four categories: Lifelong PE, Acquired PE, Natural Variable PE, and Premature-Like Ejaculatory Dysfunction (no translation, we know the division into four categories on the line). Of these four types, Lifelong PE and some Acquired PE require medication, accounting for about 5% of premature ejaculation; the rest can be cured through behavioral training and psychotherapy.  At the early stage of designing the treatment plan for premature ejaculation, I analyzed the design plan of sexual concentration training and concluded that there were more defects in the design of this method: First, the training method requires close cooperation of the spouse, which fails to solve the psychological problems of the patient and neglects the cultivation of the patient’s self-confidence. The cooperation of the spouse is very important in sex, but because the sexual concentration training relies too much on the cooperation of the spouse, it is difficult for men to master the techniques and methods of ejaculation control that are suitable for them through training. This results in the patient being unable to have good sex if the spouse does not cooperate well, and fundamentally cannot build up self-confidence in sex.  Secondly, it takes a long time and is difficult to stick to. Traditional sexual concentration training requires close cooperation between spouses over a long period of time, which is difficult for both parties to adhere to, and the female partner’s inability to cooperate over a long period of time is the main reason for the reduced long-term efficacy. It also causes another very serious problem, that is, the sex between the couple into a therapeutic process, making sex completely tasteless.  Thirdly, it does not facilitate effective communication between doctors and patients. Many premature ejaculation patients have formed many wrong views due to misleading information, and many patients also have various psychological problems. The treatment of premature ejaculation is not only about time extension, but also about solving patients’ psychological problems and restoring their psychological health through psychotherapy. However, because traditional sex concentration training requires patients to be treated at home, doctors are unable to detect and correct behavioral and psychological problems that arise during the training process, often making it difficult for the training to achieve its intended purpose.  These design flaws directly lead to a reduction in the long-term efficacy of sexuality focus training, and even to treatment failure. This shows that it is not the behavioral training itself that is unsuitable for the treatment of premature ejaculation, but the specific training methods that need to be improved. Therefore, during my postdoctoral work, under the guidance of my supervisor, I redesigned the behavioral training for premature ejaculation, replacing the behavioral training performed between couples with the use of an instrument for training treatment. On the one hand, it adhered to the core concept of sensual focus training, that is, focusing on the enjoyment of sex; on the other hand, it tried to make up for the shortcomings in its design, focusing on the effective communication between doctor and patient, the development of patient’s self-confidence and the mastery of ejaculation control methods. At present, this treatment program has achieved good results, which clinically proves the correctness and importance of this treatment method of behavioral training.