Stephen B. Levine - Education and Career

Education and Career

Levine earned his M.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1967 and serves as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry there. His clinical practice began in the mid-1970s as the University Hospitals of Cleveland Sexual Dysfunction Clinic. In 1993 the Clinic separated from University Hospitals, and is presently called The Center for Marital and Sexual Health in Beachwood, Ohio.

His early work focused on premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction, and he has written on a number of treatment options, including vacuum pumps, injections into the corpus cavernosum of the penis, and Viagra. The most potent aphrodisiacs, according to Levine, are psychological intimacy and voyeurism: "looking at pictures or movies of people engaged in genital or romantic interplay."

Levine has written on sex offenders, including professionals who offend. He cites Kurt Freund as an important influence because Freund wanted to define the subtypes of child molesters to help devise a means of prevention. Levine has written about adultery and infidelity and believes pejorative terms like "cheating" and "infidelity" prevent addressing the issue in realistic terms.

He is noted for his work in clinical management of gender identity disorder. Levine was Chair of the fifth edition of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care in 1998. Levine also served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

Levine was section co-editor with R. Taylor Segraves for the section on sexual and gender identity disorders in Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders by Glen Gabbard. Notable contributors included Martin Kafka (paraphilias) and Kenneth Zucker (gender identity disorder in children and adolescents).

Although much of his work is written for other clinicians, Levine has written books for a lay audience, including Solving Common Sexual Problems (1997) and Sexuality in Mid-Life (2004).