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Edited by Irwin Goldstein,
Cindy M. Meston, Susan R. Davis,
and Abdulmaged M. Traish, 760 pp, $125.
New York, NY, Taylor & Francis, 2006.
ISBN 1-84214-263-1.

JAMA. 2007;297:895-897.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

One hundred twenty eight international authors have contributed to this textbook of encyclopedic proportions on women's sexual function, sexual physiology, and problematic response. The result is an excellent resource for academics and clinicians already in the field. However, for those new to the topic, both guidance as to where to start and a caution that the scientific standard of reporting studies is variable are needed.

I suggest reading the chapters on assessment and diagnosis (in section 3) first, then the final chapter on future directions, which puts much of the previous material into perspective. Surprisingly, there is no chapter devoted to psychological causes of dysfunction, nor is psychological evaluation prominent in assessment chapters. But the chapters on the history of psychological treatments and the roles of the psychologist and psychiatrist will provide the fundamentals of assessment, including sexual past, current relationship, personality traits, developmental history, and family-of-origin issues.

Stricter editing . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Rosemary Basson, MB, BS, FRCP(UK), Reviewer
BC Centre for Sexual Medicine
University of British Columbia
Vancouver
sexmed@interchange.ubc.ca

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