Sex Addiction
Alana Gissen is a licensed clinical social worker who received her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida in Tampa, and her Master’s degree from Baylor University. She graduated from Baylor University in 1992, and has been working in the field of addiction since 1992. She also has a certification in sex therapy.
In this report, Alana discusses sex addiction.
Sex addiction is understood as a pathological relationship with a mood altering behavior. First, let’s differentiate between enjoying sex versus sex addiction.
Enjoying sex is liking sex, and that’s human, it’s okay, and it’s normal.
A lot of people want to understand what the difference is between normal sex, enjoying sex a lot, and sex addiction.
Sex Addiction
What are the signs and symptoms of sex addiction?
First of all, with sex addiction there is an obsessive drive to repeat a certain behavior. There is an irresistible impulse to perform a sexual act.
A sex addict will try to stop certain behaviors, but they can’t. Usually the behaviors are contrary to one’s will, and the behaviors go against the sex addict’s values and beliefs, maybe how they were raised, or certain things that they knew were right and wrong.
They continue to do things that they know are going against what they were raised with or their values and beliefs. There are irrational behaviors, meaning that the sex addict knows that they’re doing something wrong, but they continue to do it, even forsaking their personal safety.
There’s an inability to stop certain sexual behaviors despite negative consequences. A sex addict would have certain consequences for acting out sexually, but they continue to act out the sexual behaviors.
A sex addict feels powerless over their behavior
A sex addict will also tell themselves that this is the last time that they’re ever going to do it again, and they continue to do the behaviors. They are powerless, they can’t help themselves, and their life is unmanageable because of how they are acting out sexually.
Their life becomes unmanageable in terms of their family life, their work life, their friends, and it just becomes their entire priority in their life.
There are different ways a sex addict might act out, and these are just some examples. A sex addict might act out sexually through masturbation, voyeurism, pornography, paying for sex, infidelity, and anonymous sex.
There is treatment for sex addiction
The first thing that you need to do is admit that there’s a problem, and get into therapy so that you can understand what’s going on with your behaviors and realize that if you are a sex addict that getting help is really the only way that you’re going to be able to stop the behaviors.
You need to identify your triggers and what your behaviors are, your patterns, and what people, places and things are triggering you.
You need to develop a recovery plan of action as to how you are going to deal with your recovery in sex addiction.
You need to learn about healthy sexuality, and you need to engage in the program of sex addict’s anonymous which is a twelve-step program that helps other fellow sex addicts, and you realize that you’re not alone. It’s a beautiful program that can really help you with these types of behaviors.
Sex Addiction
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