Sex History

The Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions - Diagnosis

Sex History

The first sexologist to develop a detailed instrument for assessing a person's sexual history was the Berlin physician Magnus Hirschfeld, who, in 1908, designed a lengthy "psychobiological questionnaire" that all his patients had to fill out. Thirty years later, the American biologist Alfred C. Kinsey developed his famous interview and coding system, enabling him to record all of a person's sexual experiences, no matter how extensive, on a single sheet of paper. Since then, many sex therapists have developed their own questionnaires, often combining some of Hirschfeld's and Kinsey's questions with new ones of their own. A very good example was published by the California sex therapists William E. Hartman and Marilyn A. Fithian in their book "Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction: A Bio-Psycho-Social Approach", Long Beach, CA, pp. 29-65, 1972. Ten years later, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Kinsey's closest associate, published a detailed account of the Kinsey-interview with instructions on how to conduct it (W. B. Pomeroy, C.C. Flax, C.C. Wheeler: "Taking a Sex History - Interviewing and Coding", New York 1982).

Click!

Click!

Alfred C. Kinsey

Kinsey recording sheet before the interview

Kinsey recording sheet after the interview

Marilyn A. Fithian
and
William E. Hartman

Wardell B. Pomeroy

[Course 5] [Diagnosis] [Physical Examination] [Sexological Exam] [Sex History] [Interviewing]