Sex Addiction Treatment

If you’re searching for sex addiction treatment, you’re in the right place. I help clients, usually men, with many different forms of compulsive sexual behavior, problem sexual behavior, infidelity, porn viewing, or seeing sex workers.

How many times have you said to yourself, “I’m never going to do that again”?

Many men seek out sex addiction treatment because their behavior has broken something in their lives. Maybe your partner just found out about your behavior, or got in trouble at work. Sometimes, he’s motivated by a spiritual or moral crisis where he realizes, this just isn’t who he wants to be. The common thread for all of these experiences is that he realizes he’s broken something he values, and that breaks him.

What is sex addiction?

Sex addiction is a term that was created to describe sexual behavior that shares some characteristics with other addictive behaviors. For example, when sexual behavior feels hard to stop, creates shame and hiding, and damages your relationships or your ability to function.

The challenge with calling these behaviors “sex addictions” is that your sexuality isn’t something you can stop. You can abstain from being a sexual being, like you can be abstinent from a substance. In that sense, I tend to compare sex addiction treatment to eating disorder treatment. In eating disorder treatment, you need to develop a healthy relationship with food because you always need to eat. Since you will always be a sexual being, you need to find a healthy relationship with your sexuality.

Finally, sex addiction isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis recognized in the United States. Even in the ICD-11 (the international diagnostic coding system), Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder is categorized as an impulse control disorder, not an addiction.

Even though sex addiction isn’t a diagnosis . . .

Your sexual behavior may be hurting the people you love.

Your sexual behavior may be difficult to stop.

You may still need therapy to help.

Early in Sex Addiction Treatment

When people come into sex addiction treatment, they often want help right now to help them fix what their behavior broke. I help men with that urgent need by looking for their current stable point. What are you doing right now? What can you commit to right now? How can you begin your path towards integrity today?

Later Sex Addiction Treatment

As the sex addiction treatment develops, I help the client define what longer-term sexual health will look like for him. How will you treat your mental health issues that led to your sexual behavior problems? What will your pathways to pleasure be, so that you stop the cycle of starving for touch and then seeking it in sexual behavior that isn’t in line with your values? Finally, we focus more on what sexual behaviors you want to do than on what you don’t want to do.

What I Do in Sex Addiction Treatment

I don’t . . .

I don’t work with clients with the following issues: enjoying violating consent, viewing cp, or any behavior with underage individuals.

I don’t tell my clients what behaviors they need to engage in and which ones they need to stop. For example, there’s no number of times you should or shouldn’t masturbate to be healthy. Telling clients what they should or shouldn’t do creates new cycles of shame, rebellion against authority, hiding, desire, and increases pleasure in behavior seen as forbidden.

I don’t use appeals to my religion, spirituality, or morality to tell you what your sexual behavior should or shouldn’t be.

I don’t assign you to 12-step or other sex addiction treatment programs. But . . .

I do . . .

I do work with you if you want to engage in one of those programs, such as SAA or The Mindful Habit. A social support system is helpful for mental well-being in any situation.

I do help couples recover from the pain of problematic sexual behavior in sessions where your partner can join you in your individual therapy or in couples therapy. However, I don’t switch back and forth between individual and couples therapy.

I do help clients learn the principles of sexual health (links to a blog post of mine) from the World Health Organization’s definition of sexual health. Then, I help you make a sexual health plan for how you can be sexually healthier using those principles as your guide.

I do help clients integrate their own morals or belief systems into their sexual health plan. But I may also challenge clients’ beliefs sometimes. For example, if your religion tells you a naturally occurring aspect of sexuality is wrong, I will help you examine that with scientific evidence about human sexuality. If I had a client who told me their religion said the moon didn’t exist, I’d also encourage them to go look at the sky and use critical thinking to examine that belief.

I do use a treatment model for these behaviors based on helping clients seek sexual health, Out-of-Control Sexual Behavior (OCSB) Treatment. You can read more about that here. That post will also explain why, except for when I’m recruiting clients like on this page, I don’t usually refer to “sex addiction.”

If you’re ready for sex addiction treatment for your out-of-control sexual behavior, contact me today.