Today, we are discussing psychogenic erectile dysfunction on the Erectile Dysfunction Radio Podcast. Psychogenic means the origins are psychological.
The Psychology of Erectile Dysfunction Podcast
mark@centericc.com
Nov 19, 2025
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Erectile Dysfunction Radio Podcast
Today, we are discussing psychogenic erectile dysfunction. Psychogenic means the origins are psychological. The Erectile Dysfunction Radio Podcast empowers and educates men to address erectile dysfunction, improve confidence, and enhance the satisfaction in their relationships. This podcast is hosted by certified sex therapist, Mark Goldberg, LCMFT, CST.Transcript of Episode 2 – The Psychology of Erectile Dysfunction
Today, we are discussing psychogenic erectile dysfunction. The first thing we’re going to do is define what psychogenic even means. The word psychogenic means the origins of are psychological. Now, there are a number of ways to categorize erectile dysfunction. And for our purposes, I want to introduce three distinct categories that can help you better think about and ultimately address erectile dysfunction.
The first category, which we mentioned already, is psychogenic ED, or erectile dysfunction whose origins are completely psychological in nature. This type of erectile dysfunction accounts for about 10% to 20% of all cases of ED, which means, depending on other factors in your life, if you are generally young and healthy, there’s a significant chance that you’re experiencing psychogenic erectile dysfunction.
The second category is organic erectile dysfunction. That means that there is a strong biological, neurogenic, or other medical basis to what is causing your erectile dysfunction. Currently, the working assumption is that all cases that are not psychogenic, meaning 80% to about 90% of all erectile dysfunction cases, are assumed to be organic in nature.
There’s also a third category and that is the category which is a mix between psychogenic and organic factors. This mixed category probably accounts for the vast majority of cases, meaning that most cases are not purely psychogenic, and they are not purely organic. There are factors from both that are contributing to your erectile dysfunction.
So let’s ask the question, why are these categories so binary? Why is it that we attribute 10% to 20% of erectile dysfunction to psychogenic causes, and 80% to 90% of erectile dysfunction to organic causes, and there really is not any statistical numbers left for that mixed case? So, part of this is understanding that the treatment and understanding of erectile dysfunction has shifted dramatically over the past 40 to 50 years, in particular, in the past couple of decades.
So let me share with you just a little bit of the brief history of erectile dysfunction treatment, so you can better understand what I am referring to. Erectile dysfunction, for many, many years, certainly through the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, probably through most of the ’80s, was considered to be a psychological condition.
It was assumed that about 90% or more of cases of erectile dysfunction were of psychological origin.
With the advent of medications that have proven to be very effective for treating erectile dysfunction, the thinking around erectile dysfunction shifted rather dramatically, to assume that most cases, accounting to about 80% or 90%, are actually organically driven, with only 10% to 20% now being considered psychological.
I want to share with you a story about a man that I worked with. I think this story can highlight how psychological factors can impact erections, irrespective of what is causing them.
This gentleman was 43 years old when he came to see me. He had a medical diagnosis that was clearly impacting his ability to gain and maintain an erection.
Thankfully for him, the medical issue, at least in terms of how it impacted his erections, was able to be resolved with one of the popular medications for erectile dysfunction.
However, he still came to see me because this man had developed significant anxiety and concerns about whether or not he would be able to get an erection.
He also began to worry about how his partner was reacting to his attempts to engage. Through his work, he was able to better address that anxiety, and ultimately have a much more enjoyable and engaging sexual relationship with his partner.
This aspect of the erection process is not going to be addressed by medication. Those medications are not going to fix your anxiety, and they’re not going to fix your relationship, which is one of the primary locations where that erection is looking to express itself.
So yes, your erectile dysfunction can have organic components to it. There’s probably a good chance that it does, but addressing the organic components alone could leave a lot of potential benefits and solutions on the table. With an issue as important as an erection, it is my belief that you should leave nothing on the table, and pour everything into finding a comprehensive solution that works for you.
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