Sex Addiction Treatment
Sex Addiction is a scary label that can simplify complex patterns of behavior. It can be out of control, compulsive, sexual behavior leading to extreme risk taking and harm to self and others. It can be a failed struggle to refrain from behaviors not in congruence with a person's value system. It almost always carries with it deep rooted feelings of shame and failure, often intensified by the anger and hurt of a spouse or partner.
For the client struggling with addictive or compulsive sexual behavior, the starting point for treatment is to look at the struggle as one with intimacy. Most often, clients' compulsive sexual behaviors stem from childhoods that left them unprepared for healthy connection to others. Often, those childhoods involved trauma. Treatment focuses on both behavioral techniques for curbing behaviors, usually in congruence with a twelve step program, as well as looking at the underlying intimacy issues, exploring way clients can learn, often for the first time, how to form healthy connections with those around them. I offer both individual and group treatment for clients struggling with sex addiction. For the spouse or partner of a sex addict, the discovery of the addiction is most often a blunt trauma, and in my practice is treated as such. Treatment focuses first on creating a space to process the trauma. From that space, I then help clients figure out what it is they need to create safety for themselves and then, when they are ready, healthy, safe intimacy in their relationship moving forward. |