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Encyclopedia of Pain pp 1090–1096Cite as

Dyspareunia and Vaginismus

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Synonyms

Chronic pelvic pain; Coital pain; Genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder; Provoked vestibulodynia; Sexual pain disorder; Urogenital pain; Vulvodynia

Definition

The terms dyspareunia and vaginismus refer to diagnoses which were first proposed in the nineteenth century (Binik 2010a). This entry will explore recent research which challenges the reliability and validity of these diagnoses and has paved the way for a new diagnosis to appear in the DSM-5 as well as for new therapeutic interventions.

Introduction

Dyspareunia is defined in the DSM-IV as “recurring genital pain associated with sexual activity in either a male or a female” (APA 2000). Most classification systems and practitioners consider dyspareunia to be a sexual dysfunction. This classification, however, is problematic as it has resulted in a focus on the “association with sexual activity” rather than the main symptom of dyspareunia, the pain (Binik 2010a). While the majority of pain disorders are classified by the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Yitzchak M. Binik, Marie Faaborg-Andersen & Marie Andree Lahaie

Authors
  1. Yitzchak M. Binik
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  2. Marie Faaborg-Andersen
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  3. Marie Andree Lahaie
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yitzchak M. Binik .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Pain Research, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Gerald F. Gebhart

  2. Physiologisches Institut der, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Robert F. Schmidt

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Binik, Y.M., Faaborg-Andersen, M., Lahaie, M.A. (2013). Dyspareunia and Vaginismus. In: Gebhart, G.F., Schmidt, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_1238

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