Can depression and anxiety cause erectile dysfunction?

Depression and anxiety can both contribute to erectile dysfunction. In terms of anxiety, when the brain is worried about things, the last thing on its mind is having sex. So the point of urgency is survival, of making sure everything's okay. So it's not thinking about procreation and building nests in the future. It's thinking about some threat that's happening that it needs to avoid. So it's just not in that place. Depression's a little bit like that too. A lot of depression is a result of chronic anxiety. So people are worrying, and they've turned down all the feelings to feel a bit flat. Unfortunately, those feelings also include feelings of sex and attraction, things like that. So it's just not where they're at, at the moment. They also probably don't feel very good about themselves. You know, Who'd wanna be with me? I don't feel good about me so why would you feel good about me? Why would you wanna be with me? Why would you fancy me? If they don't believe these things then they project down to the partner and think well you must be feeling the same thing. So cognitive therapy, and other therapies, would be very good for addressing the underlying anxiety and sources of depression. And once those things are addressed, people can focus back on normal needs like sexual intimacy.