When talking about psychological causes of not being interested in making love, we refer to certain thoughts, feelings or emotions that reduce the interest in sex. Because of fear and anger, sexual desire may disappear in certain situations. This may have several causes like fear of performance, fear of intimacy, fear of excitement, dissatisfaction with one's own body or suppression of events from childhood. Traumatic experiences may have a lot of influence on sexual desire. Sad experiences that haven't been dealt with, like the loss of a partner, nagging and conflicts in relationships may also influence sexual desire negatively. Relational problems are often a cause. For all sorts of reasons, partners may become physically personally less attractive to each other. Differences in sexual needs and the refusal of partners to respond to advances may lead to doubts about the self-image of the man, the woman or the self-image as the beloved partner.

Certain irrational thoughts e.g. that refusing to have sex is the same as admitting an affair, may lead to a great disappointment or anger. A reduced interest in sex is also a frequent symptom of various psychiatric syndromes. The most frequent syndrome is depression. It also turns out that men and women experience sexual desire in a different way. Women see love, emotional intimacy and involvement as a goal, while men see sexual activity as such as the goal. Other factors may also negatively influence desire e.g psychological problems of the partner, stress and/ or relational problems. In the first meetings a sexologist will ask about these possible causes, so that the condition may be identified.