The Handbook of Clinical Sexuality for Mental Health Professionals, 3rd Edition, builds on the authors’ authoritative first person voice on sexual matters of the previous editions. The work reflects the field's growing sophistication about sexual disorders and their therapies. The scope has been expanded to keep pace with new literature and research in the field, and eight additional chapters have been added. New topics include the politics of diagnosis, persistent genital arousal, asexuality, post orgasm illness, scientific findings concerning origin of orientation, and partnering with the pharmaceutical industry. Easily accessible, the Handbook is divided into sections that touch on fundamental knowledge and skills; treatment; men’s major sexual concerns; women’s major sexual concerns; problems common to both genders; the diversity of sexual lives; and future and trending topics. Written in a personal, supervisory style, the book will help new therapists anticipate clinical contingencies and help experienced therapists refine their thinking and teaching.

Call it a remnant of our Victorian past, but sexual concerns lag behind other aspects of health, both in the training of physicians and therapists and in the way they impart this knowledge to clients. But as sexuality gains recognition as crucial to one’s quality of life, evidence-based methods of understanding and discussing sex are imperative—and not only in treating pathology. Sexual Medicine in Clinical Practice provides framework, rationale, and strategies for both approaching sexual problems and addressing patients’ questions about sexual health, behavior, and relationships. Analyzing sexuality along three dimensions—attachment, reproduction, and desire—this concise manual offers a biopsychosocial lifespan model readily translatable into clinical work. This “syndyastic” framework integrates attachment and relational theory to reinforce the bond between intimacy and connectedness, and models nonjudgmental approaches to disorders of sexual function, maturity, preference, and behavior. The authors’ salutogenic rather than pathogenic focus lets clients become major players in their own healing, and the therapist or doctor serve as expert and guide. Among the topics covered: The communicative function of sexuality. The spectrum of sexual disorders. Principles of diagnostics in sexual medicine. Disease-centered versus client-centered aspects of sexual therapy. Therapeutic approaches for sexual traumatization. New challenges, including preventing child sexual abuse and online sex crime. Plus case studies, interdisciplinary references, and ethical issues. A timely, perspective- and practice-altering volume, Sexual Medicine in Clinical Practice is essential reading for family and primary care physicians, family and sex therapists, health psychologists, and psychiatrists.