Even in a rather limited field such as sexual functioning after gynaecological cancer treatment, a large number of different questions arise. For this study the following two main questions were selected:
1. What is the course of sexual functioning against time, starting from before the onset of the disease until a specific moment in time after treatment, i.e. when no more changes induced by the disease or treatment are to be expected? What role does time play in the process of sexual adaptation after gynaecological cancer treatment?
2. How do internal and external causal factors elicit and control sexual behaviour before and after treatment for gynaecological cancer? What underlying psychological and/or physiological mechanisms regulate the process of sexual functioning after gynaecological cancer treatment?
To answer these rather broad and general questions, a number of steps were developed which either led to direct answers, if available in the literature, or to clues indicating the direction our own study should take. These steps, which form the chapters of this thesis, also include some basic and rather general information about sexuality, gynaecological cancer, and psychological adaptation after traumatic events, because this study involves two groups of professionals with rather different backgrounds: psychologists and gynaecologists.