Erectile dysfunction frequently has psychological causes. One difficulty in determining this is the delicate interplay between physical and mental factors in the treatment of any condition, including ED.

One clearer example is the case in which a person is taking anti-depressant medication. Depression may cause temporary or long-lasting impotence, but anti-depressant medication could equally be the culprit.

In the more usual case, there's a common feedback mechanism between mind and body producing the condition.

Everyone is aware of the fact that their state of mind and emotions causes physical changes. Depression can lead to lethargy and fatigue. In turn, physical conditions affect mood. Feeling irritable, which may be purely hormonal in a particular case, often leads to being irritable. That, then, may affect sexual desire and performance.

Such circumstances are also often amplified in another kind of feedback mechanism.

Decreased desire, resulting in erectile dysfunction, may increase anxiety making it all the more difficult to break the vicious circle of cause and ill-effect. Severe depression may be the ultimate outcome, leading to total lack of interest in sex and other positive values.

In a percentage of cases, the underlying causes may be temporary. Worry over job security or short-term financial problems can lead to decreased desire. Mild depression, the feeling that the situation is, though perhaps not hopeless, not likely to be corrected soon, can cause impotence. The lack of erection may last a few days, in which case it's not generally labeled ED. When it persists for several weeks or longer, the condition begins to enter clinical territory.

Like most psychological conditions, depression comes in degrees. Lethargy, fatigue and 'feeling blue' are common conditions experienced by everyone at some time or another. In most circumstances, the condition is relatively short-lived or mild. When it becomes chronic or severe the result can be a persistent failure to achieve erection.

In generations past a male's self-esteem was often substantially impacted in any instance of impotence. The longer or more often the condition occurred, the greater the difficulty of overcoming that negative self-appraisal.

While that situation has hardly disappeared from modern life, it is now much less severe. Males more often today don't rest so much of their self-perception of masculinity on the ability to perform sexually. Greater awareness of the universal nature of temporary impotence has erased much of the stigma. Widespread knowledge of the options available to treat longer term cases has decreased the anxiety associated with ED.

The result of both these social changes has been to help curb the negative feedback cycle, and decrease the amplifying effect, of psychological causes of erectile dysfunction. That's reason for good cheer.