What is Sexual Addiction?
Sexual addiction is defined as any sexually-related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones, and one's work environment. Sexual addiction has other names; sexual dependency, sexual compulsivity, sexual mania, uncontrollable sex appetite, to name a few. What ever you call it sexual addiction, feels out of control, and can dominate a person’s life.
A simple way to question the presence of addiction is to ask two questions:
1. Is there loss of control or an inability to stop the behavior?
2. Does the behavior continue despite adverse consequences?
They are willing to sacrifice what they cherish most in order to preserve and continue their unhealthy behavior.
Sexual addicts make sex more important than:
1. Family
2. Friends
3. Work
4. Spiritual Connection
5. Responsibilities and personal ethics
Sexual addiction can take many forms and these behaviors, when unmanageable, include compulsive relationships, compulsive masturbation, repetitive use of pornography, prostitution, exhibitionism, voyeurism, indecent phone calls, obsessive ruminating about sex or another person or image, to name a few.
What is Sexual Anorexia
Sexual anorexia is a perpetual state of avoiding sex. This obsessive behavior includes the complete physical, mental, and emotional overwhelming of one's life with the avoidance of anything sexual. Like self-starvation with food or compulsive dieting or hoarding with money, deprivation with sex can make one feel powerful and defended against all hurts.
This avoidance alters the way a person feels just like any other method of altering moods would do such as use of alcohol or drugs, habitual anger, compulsive eating or gambling, etc.
This produces an escape from reality and the illusion of life having less or no problems. It is the obsession itself that produces the escape. This then becomes the coping method of the individual’s life and all focus and energy is spent on this goal in order to feel safe and in control.
Unfortunately this way of dealing with life comes at great cost to one’s personal life, the lives of family and friends.
We begin by sitting down with our clients and in a setting of complete confidentiality, we carefully listen and help our clients to become clear about what their sexual addiction issue is about. We then develop a treatment plan that is structured and may include individual therapy, group therapy, and community support approaches for healing nad recovery.
We utilize the Recovery Start Kit™ developed by Patrick Carnes PhD and our clinicians are CSAT candidates who specialize in treating sexual addiction.
