Behavioral treatment of a case of psychogenic urinary retention.

The case involved a thirteen-year-old girl with a history of different urological disorders who since the age of four showed several rituals associated with micturition as well as progressively intense urinary retention. Micturition occupied 2 to 12 hours a day. Treatment consists of systematic desensitization through imagery and in vivo together with progressive response prevention of ritualized behaviours. Cognitive therapy and parent counselling is also used. Normality is attained after 7 weeks treatment and maintained at 18 months follow-up. Psychiatric diagnosis is simple phobia to micturition.