The frigid woman has learned to fear physical love, to run from it, and this fear has profound repercussions on her relationships with men. The reasons for her fear are hidden from her, are locked in her unconscious mind. Consciously she may wish, above all things, to achieve real closeness with her husband, to give and receive the greatest of all mutual joys between man and woman, sexual gratification. But she has not the capacity to receive this joy. It is beyond her will and control. It is as if she had a million dollars and could not spend a cent of it; as if she were surrounded by the finest foods and must starve. The very fact of the new equality she has won makes her problem even more humiliating, bitterer, more frustrating.
In my fifteen years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst I have treated many, many women who have come to me in despair because of their partial or total inability to enjoy the sexual part of their marriage and because of the repercussions from this inability. I and hundreds of other psychiatrists have been fortunate in helping many of them to overcome their difficulties. We have found that before a woman can be expected to take full responsibility for reaching true sexual maturity she must really know all about herself, her sex and her problem. Then and only then has she the material in hand to start growing up, in all pleasure, to her full feminine stature.
If a woman is willing to work in all seriousness with a psychiatrist there is little question that she can be helped to overcome her sexual difficulty. The information she receives, the insights she obtains into the conditions which have kept her from experiencing real love can sweep away her ignorance, her misunderstandings, her irrational fears.
Her experience with the psychiatrist may help her husband, too, for with his wife's consent the therapist will often see him for periodic discussions. These talks help him to
