Many people with PCT may exhibit strong feelings of anxiety lasting from five minutes to two hours after coitus.
[1] The phenomenon is attributed to the Greek medical writer Galen, who is supposed to have written that "Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster.
Sigmund Freud and Havelock Ellis were familiar with the proverb, which they both attributed to an anonymous author, and it was not until decades later that the maxim became connected with Galen among sexologists.
[3] The philosopher Baruch Spinoza, in his Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, wrote: "For as far as sensual pleasure is concerned, the mind is so caught up in it, as if at peace in a [true] good, that it is quite prevented from thinking of anything else.
[6] With respect to symptoms in women, one study involved an epidemiological survey of post-coital psychological symptoms in a United Kingdom population sample of female twins: it found that 3.7% of these women reported suffering from recent PCT and 7.7% of them reported suffering PCT for a long time.