Shirley Zussman, Indefatigable Sex Therapist, Is Dead at 107

Shirley Zussman, a enactment therapist who was trained by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, the researchers who demystified the mechanics of sex, and who continued seeing patients until she was 105, died connected Dec. 4 astatine her location successful Manhattan. She was 107.

Her son, Marc Zussman, confirmed the death.

In 1966, Dr. Zussman, a psychiatric societal idiosyncratic and psychotherapist, and her husband, Leon Zussman, a gynecologist and obstetrician, were invited to a lecture fixed by 2 enactment researchers who were virtually chartless astatine the time: Dr. Masters, a gynecologist, and Ms. Johnson, a assemblage dropout who had studied psychology.

At their St. Louis clinic, the mates (Dr. Masters was astatine the clip joined to idiosyncratic else) had begun helping radical amended their enactment lives, utilizing what they’d learned successful astir a decennary of objective probe studying the ways men and women had enactment and what gave them pleasure. Their publication “Human Sexual Response,” which popularized the attraction of intersexual dysfunction and helped liberate its sufferers from the analyst’s couch, had conscionable been published and was not yet the runaway champion seller it would become. But the lecture they delivered, arsenic Dr. Zussman told Time mag successful 2014, the twelvemonth of her centennial, resonated for her and her husband.

Dr. Masters and Ms. Johnson’s probe recovered that women could beryllium multi-orgasmic, but not ever oregon often — or, successful immoderate cases, ever — done penetration. They were pro-masturbation and taught astir it. It was a fraught taste moment, arsenic the buttoned-up 1950s gave mode to what Dr. Zussman called the frantic hookups of the ’60s, and each play had successful its ain mode been a look for show anxiousness and distress.

Despite the relaxing mores of the ’60s, Dr. Zussman recalled: “It was each not conscionable glamorous and fantastic to beryllium sexual. One had to astir larn however to beryllium a bully spouse and to bask the pleasure, not lone for yourself but for each other. And I thought, ‘We tin bash that! Why can’t we bash that?’”

The Zussmans trained astatine the Masters and Johnson Institute and by the mid-’70s were co-directors of the Human Sexuality Center astatine Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center. Their patients were joined couples, typically women who were not orgasmic and men who were impotent oregon ejaculating prematurely.

They felt the underlying issues had to bash with communication, arsenic they mildly elaborate successful their 1979 book, “Getting Together: A Guide to Sexual Enrichment for Couples.” With exercises some carnal and intelligence — the Zussmans encouraged their patients to plumb their upbringing for clues to their attitudes astir enactment and relationships, and to analyse however work, household and societal pressures affected their intimacy — the publication was wide-ranging successful its scope. It was besides compassionate.

“Shirley was a pioneer successful enactment therapy and an fantabulous relation model,” said Ruth Westheimer, who was a programme manager astatine Planned Parenthood and was studying sexuality astatine Columbia University erstwhile she took a people successful enactment therapy taught by Dr. Zussman and her hubby astatine their Long Island clinic. It was the archetypal acquisition with the subject for Dr. Westheimer, the buoyant Holocaust subsister and sexologist who aboriginal became a acquainted look connected television. “They were trailblazers, due to the fact that she was a therapist and her hubby was a gynecologist and that validated the work. It gave it the legitimacy that enactment therapists similar maine needed. I wouldn’t beryllium talking astir orgasms if it wasn’t for Shirley.”

Sexual pleasure, Dr. Zussman said successful 2014, “is lone 1 portion of what men and women privation for each other. They privation intimacy. They privation closeness. They privation understanding. They privation comfort. They privation fun. And they privation idiosyncratic who truly cares astir them beyond going to furniture with them. And I deliberation radical are ever seeking that successful each generation.”

Shirley Edith Dlugasch was calved connected July 23, 1914, connected the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her father, Louis Dlugasch, was a doctor, and her mother, Sara (Steiner) Dlugasch, was a surgical nurse.

Shirley grew up successful Brooklyn and attended Smith College, majoring successful science and graduating successful 1934. (Julia Child was a classmate.) She earned a diploma astatine the New York School of Social Work-Columbia University (now the Columbia School of Social Work) successful 1937, and a doctorate successful acquisition from Teachers College, astatine Columbia University, successful 1969.

Her dissertation looked astatine husbands who were contiguous successful the transportation room, a extremist enactment successful the ’50s and ’60s. Dr. Zussman wanted to research transportation customs successful different cultures, and she reached retired to the celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead, who was a subordinate of Columbia’s faculty, to beryllium connected her thesis committee.

In summation to her son, Dr. Zussman is survived by her daughter, Carol Sun; 3 grandchildren; 2 step-grandchildren; and 7 great-grandchildren. Leon Zussman died successful 1980.

In her signifier of some enactment therapy and psychotherapy, Dr. Zussman saw same-sex couples and azygous radical arsenic good arsenic heterosexual couples. She said the astir communal occupation among her patients successful the 21st period was a deficiency of desire.

“You person to look astatine your priorities,” she told Time magazine. “You person to determine what is important to marque you consciousness bully astir yourself and your life. And to assistance marque your spouse consciousness good. To found thing that is gratifying, that fills a request that we each person to beryllium adjacent to somebody.”