Word: zilbergeld
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...Masters and Johnson record in sex therapy was unparalleled, even unique, and therein lay the catch. Other sex therapists have since been unable to match their success rate and consequently have been growing increasingly skeptical of the reliability of their findings. Now two California psychologists, Bernie Zilbergeld and Michael Evans, in the current issue of Psychology Today, have written the sharpest, most substantial attack yet. "Masters and Johnson's research is so flawed by methodological errors and slipshod reporting that it fails to meet customary standards-and their own-for evaluation research," say Zilbergeld and Evans. "This raises serious...
...evaluating any research -"the only impeccable yardstick," as Masters and Johnson themselves put it -is the ability of other researchers to duplicate the results using the same techniques. But, say Zilbergeld and Evans, it is impossible to tell from Masters and Johnson's own account precisely what they did and how they did it. Among many unanswered questions, according to the two psychologists: How did Masters and Johnson define success and failure in sex therapy? Who decided if treatment had succeeded? By what criteria...
Many of Masters and Johnson's patients tended to be highly motivated and prescreened through referrals by psychiatrists and psychologists; hence they were probably likely to respond to treatment. Zilbergeld and Evans fault Masters and Johnson for not being more candid about the special nature of their sample. Masters and Johnson never divulged how many applicants they considered and how many they rejected, nor how many were accepted and then later quit or were asked to leave. Similarly, in their study of homosexuality, Masters and Johnson used a Kinsey-developed system of seven categories of sexual preference. Of their...
Such therapists would gratefully take guidance from Masters and Johnson's research; but while less harshly critical than Zilbergeld and Evans, they are frustrated by what they consider the inadequacy of Masters and Johnson's direction. "I would like to see the data," says Psychologist F. Paul Pearsall, on the staff of the Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Ind. "Until we can replicate their work, we will remain either awed, envious or suspicious of its validity...