Not being able to control your impulses can lead you down a very dark road. It is not simple to deal with this by yourself either, which is why sex addiction counseling is so crucial.

This isn’t a problem that is as simple as just deciding to stop. When it is a true addiction people cannot control easily. Recognizing that you have a problem may even prove to be difficult at first. If your sexual habits are negatively impacting your life, then you need to have the strength to reach your hand out to get professional help.

Sex addiction can manifest itself in different ways:

• • Obsessive use of pornography
  • Excessive masturbation
  • Preoccupied with personal dating sites or affair sites
  • Extramarital or extra relationship affairs
  • Use of prostitutes and/or escorts
  • Unsafe sexual practices
  • Visiting strip clubs, massage parlors
  • And more.

  God created us as relational being.  Just as God existed in the Trinity, we exist in a series of relationships.  A disruption in the foundation of establishing healthy relationships leads to a problem with having authentic intimacy.  Sex addiction is referred to as an “intimacy disorder,” which means that a sex addict’s psychological pattern for healthy intimacy is disordered. “Intimacy” corresponds to the verb “to intimate,” which means to make known. Intimate knowledge in any relationship requires two key aspects: to be able to know oneself, and to be able to freely share and receive this knowledge. All human beings share a basic need to connect through intimacy. This ability to connect can become disordered through trauma, but usually for most addicts this ability was disordered in early childhood. If childhood attempts to connect with healthy intimacy were prevented or impossible, the resulting isolation develops an ever-increasing need for alternative methods of self-soothing.  In adulthood, sex addiction is one such method of self-medication. A frustrated inability to dependably connect with healthy intimacy in primary relationships drives the sex addict to connect in unhealthy ways that further reinforce the basic inability to connect. This kind of irrationality underlies the tragedy of untreated sex addiction.

  Finally, dealing with the underlying intimacy problems most sex addicts and cybersex addicts present with is necessary as well. Healing the effects of childhood trauma is critical in preventing relapse. Sex addicts have reported high incidents of childhood abuse: physical (72%), sexual (81%) and emotional (97%).

Addiction involves continuing a behavior a person wants to stop, but they feel unable to stop even when there are clear negative consequences to the actions taken. A high sex drive may be related to high levels of hormones, or other factors. One does not automatically equal the other.

Only mental health practitioners who are licensed or otherwise credentialed in their particular counseling field (e.g., psychologists, licensed professional counselors, licensed marriage & family therapists, clinical social workers) are eligible to enroll in the CSAT training.

The training consists of four weeks of intensive classes with faculty of the International Institute for Trauma and addiction Professionals (IITAP). The CSAT training was designed by Dr. Patrick Carnes, the one who coined the term “sex addiction,” and others involves gaining expertise in assessing the level and type of sexual dependence, the client’s sexual and trauma history and an assessment of family of origin issues and other addictions and addiction interactions that might be present.  The certification also requires 30 hours of supervision on actual clinical work with sex addiction and betrayed partners by a CSAT-Supervisor.

To maintain certification, the CSAT counselor must renew certification every two years.  Each therapist, however, is also under the jurisdiction of their state board and/or professional licensing body for professional requirements.

In contrast with CSAT counselors, non-certified counselors lack the level and intensity of the training and clinical supervision of their counseling.  Non-certified therapists may have obtained their own training through various workshops and conferences as well as reading, but lacking the supervision by an experienced CSAT deprives them of having their clinical work guided and evaluated.

Yes. We have treated many female sex addicts. As sexual access becomes more available through the internet and social inhibitions fall away, greater numbers of women are admitting that they too are drawn to compulsive sex and are more willing to seek help now than before.  Research indicates that between 27% and 33% of women are addicted to sex and/or the love they feel in having sex.  The latter are known as “Love Addicts.”

One means of determining whether or not you are a sex addict is to take the Sexual Dependency Inventory (SDI), that only a trained sex addiction therapist can administer.  It is a lengthy battery of tests to understand all aspects of a person’s sexual thoughts and behaviors.  The SDI is the gold standard of sexual addiction assessment.  It was developed and redeveloped through over 30 years of research.

Additionally, the sex addiction therapist will assess you carefully and determine if there is an addiction and to what extent.

Yes, individuals who consume pornography can be sexually addicted.  Powerful images such as pornography creates an obsessive craving to view the images again and again.  Simply, porn addiction is the overuse or abuse of pornography that has negative consequences for one’s life.  The porn addict cannot control the compulsion and continues the destructive behaviors despite negative consequences.  The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health has found that 2 million people are addicted to internet pornography.  Research suggests that 11-12 hours a week is often spent viewing pornography.  Alone with only the computer for company, porn addicts are isolated from real human contact.  For an addict, porn objectifies the actors and leads to a loss of intimacy.  This form of transactional sex is shallow and unfulfilling.

However, not everyone who looks at pornography is a sex addict.  People watch or read pornography for many reasons.  For those whose pornographic consumption is compulsive, ritualistic, and results in feelings of emptiness and despair it is likely an expression of sex addiction.  When the internet was developed it allowed for pornography and other sexual behaviors such as chat rooms to be easily accessed with anonymity and affordable, and in many cases it is free.

Cybersex is the broad term for any sexually oriented activity on the internet.  Thus, through cybersex people can access a very wide array of options that can quickly produce serious negative consequences from high risk behaviors. In a survey of 9,265 internet users, 17 percent reported problems due to cybersex activity. One percent of these users, 40 percent of which were women, reported severe consequences (Cooper, Delmonico, & Burg, 2000).

Dr. Patrick Carnes points out the following patterns of cybersex addicts:

• • Rapid escalation of amount and variety.
  • Escalation becomes obsessive with new, specific behaviors becoming quickly fixated.
  • Relational regression occurs (withdrawal from and loss of sexual interest with partner).
  • Acceleration of existing addictive and compulsive behaviors and precipitation of new off-line sexual behavior.

While some believe sex addiction can be cured, research indicates that what it does to the brain prevents a “cure” from happening.  Once the brain has a set of patterns around sexual behavior, the addict can minimize them and then close the program out as a computer functions.  Nevertheless, the program is not uninstalled.  It is still present and can be activated if certain behaviors return.

The fact that it cannot be “cured” in no way means that God cannot deliver from the bondage of sex addiction.  He can and He does when one surrenders his or her life completely to Him.  Just as we cannot be fully delivered from sin at salvation, God does deliver us from the curse of sin.  Unfortunately, we battle the flesh which leads us into sinning.  Sex addiction cannot be removed but God can deliver us from the curse and bondage of it.

Obviously, this is a difficult question to answer.  Everyone is different and everyone is motivated for different reasons and at different levels.  Research by Dr. Carnes, however, found that there is a five year process to recovery, that will continue throughout a person’s life.  That doesn’t mean that things are still bad or painful for that entire time.  Rather it means that there is a lot to change, transform, and grow.  The process is patience not progression.

Sex addiction therapists ask questions considered private by most people.  Just like a medical physician must examine the physical body, sex addiction therapists ask questions concerning such areas as sexual thoughts, sexual feelings, sexual practices, and areas where sexual shame might exist. The nature of the sexual behaviors that a person is struggling with and can personal and feel voyeuristic.  Counselors are not attempting to elicit dirty details.  However, as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details” so they must be thoroughly explored.  Moreover, sex addiction counselors are not shocked by replies from clients nor do their judge.  The goal is to understand you and to determine the best means of helping.

In your first therapy session, a sex therapist may ask you questions around the following topics:

• • Many questions about the acting out behaviors
  • Your sexual history
  • Questions about your family of origin
  • The early messages that you learned about sex.
  • Your general mental health history
  • Your sexual orientation and gender identity
  • Your family and your relationship with them
  • Any traumatic experiences or history that the therapist should be aware of
  • Any physical or medical concerns that may be affecting the current issue
  • Your typical sexual habits, including frequency and type of sexual

Yes. One of the first interventions a sex addiction expert recommends is to install filters on your computer and phone to not allow access to adult content sites.  Thought they work most of the time, a computer savvy person can find ways around them.

First, there are three basic types of self-help support groups: (1) self-empowering groups, (2) 12-step groups, and (3) Christian-based groups.  Addiction is similar to many other types of problems. Some people require professional assistance, while other people do not. 12-step groups (e.g., Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous; Sexual Compulsives Anonymous) are non-professional groups. One of the primary differences between 12-step support groups and professional treatment is the issue of confidentiality. Professional healthcare providers are required by law to maintain confidentiality. No such assurances exist in non-professional groups. Because some forms of sexual addiction may include illegal, dangerous, or shameful activities, the issue of confidentiality may be a very significant one. Laws regarding confidentiality vary from state-to-state. Some types of illegal activities and disclosures made during a therapy session are not protected by confidentiality. If you decide to pursue professional treatment, you should be sure to ask your therapist about the limits of confidentiality.

Another significant difference is that professional healthcare providers rely on science and research to guide their methods. 12-step support groups rely on spiritual solutions. These differences have led to a great deal of unnecessary controversy between supporters of science and supporters of 12-step groups. It is perfectly fine to integrate spiritual and scientific solutions.

While 12-step groups state that you are to surrender to a God of your understanding, Christian-based groups are specific that surrender is to Jehovah God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  Celebrate recovery, that is a Christian-based group does not limit its members to sex addiction.  Anyone can join with any type of behavioral or substance problems.  In spite of its Christian foundation, members can be judgmental of certain problems and sex addicts have reported feeling judged by members of their group.

We believe in the reality of a sinful nature that we are born with and the reality that as a result of that nature as well as the “flesh” we all sin.  While the thinking and behavior of sex addiction almost always sinful, it does not mean that there is an addictive process behind it.  Recovery from sex addiction requires confession (to God, spouse, others), repentance, and a committed to surrender one’s total life to the Lord.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would want to identify as a sex addict as an excuse. Treatment requires a rigorous commitment. There are differences between excusing and enabling bad behavior.  Today, biological conditions have been discovered that are effective explanations for various behaviors that were considered unforgivable character flaws in the past — such is the case for many mental illnesses and diagnoses. The bad excuse lies not in the initial diagnosis of sex addiction, but for failing to follow through with proper treatment.

Yes.  See “Questions from Partners of Sex Addicts.”