Development of cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention for patients with Dhat syndrome
This patient was a 25-year-old single male, employed as an engineer, from middle socioeconomic status and urban background. He had presented with complaints of inferiority feelings, anxiety in social situations, inability to concentrate on work, sweating, and dry mouth. He attributed these symptoms to loss of semen through excessive masturbation. He felt that others came to know that he engaged in masturbation by looking at his ‘weak body’. He reported intense guilt and had stopped going for social functions. Results after application of the module indicated clinically significant improvement on most of the domains []. In this patient, though some amount of anxiety was related to Dhat syndrome itself, it was found that his basic anxious temperament was also playing a large role. Cognitive restructuring was helpful in tackling this. Managing the basic anxiety remained the mainstay in this patient. The predisposing anxiety might have increased the likelihood of him having reacted to the cultural beliefs in a neurotic way, which has been one of the proposed pathways of development of Dhat syndrome.[]