We Treat:
Cybersex addiction, compulsive masturbation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, problematic use of pornography, sex clubs, strip clubs, bath houses, prostitutes.
Sexual Dysfunction
Sexual dysfunction refers to any sexual problem that prevents an individual or couple from experiencing the kind of satisfaction they would like from the sexual activities they engage in. These problems usually occur during what experts call the sexual response cycle which includes the excitement (or sexual arousal), plateau, orgasm and resolution phases.
According to estimates, sexual dysfunction occurs in 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men meaning they report some sexually difficulty or dissatisfaction. People are often afraid or hesitant to discuss these issues yet most instances of sexual dysfunction are treatable. Sharing your concerns with your partner and/or a professional is the first step to healing your problem.
Sexual dysfunction can take the form of dissatisfaction with orgasm, erectile difficulties, lack of sexual desire, pain during intercourse, performance anxiety, anorgasmia, (inability to achieve orgasm) premature ejaculation, and fear of intimacy to name a few. In other words, any problem that renders a person feeling less then satisfied with their sexual life that is not a medical problem, can be addressed in sex therapy.
Sexual dysfunction may be caused by physical and/or medical conditions. These conditions include but are not limited to heart and vascular (blood vessel) disease, neurological disorders, diabetes, obesity, hormonal imbalances, chronic diseases, alcoholism, and/or drug abuse. It is also important to remember that many medications have sexual side-effects such as antidepressants drugs. If you have any medical conditions, you should consult your medical doctor before consulting a sex therapist.
Sexual functioning can also become dysfunctional due to psychological stress and anxiety related to work, martial/relationship problems, sexual performance, depression, feelings of guilt, and past sexual trauma. When related to psychological issues, in most cases, sexual dysfunction can be successfully treated.
Low Sexual Desire
Many people, young and old alike, have low sexual desire and it can affect their relationships. Low sexual desire can be distressing to some leading them to seek sex therapy.
Oftentimes, pre-menopausal women or menopausal women will participate in sexual activity less often including initiating sex and having intercourse and may report experiencing orgasm and general sexual pleasure less often than they once did. In other cases, post-menopausal women report having the best sex of their lives because they feel more sexually secure about who they are.
Men may experience low sexual desire due to health concerns, hormonal problems (like low testosterone) or relationship issues. Additionally, many people simply get out of the habit of having sex and are still operating under old ideas that sex is a natural “drive” vs. a cultivated desire for pleasure and connection with oneself and a significant other.
Low sexual desire can come in the form of a person never having felt much sexual desire or interest or in the form of having felt sexual desire, but no longer does. The extreme form of low sexual desire is called sexual aversion, meaning the person lacks sexual desire and finds sex repulsive.
It is very common for partners in a relationship to have different levels of sexual interest with one partner being the “low desire partner” and the other being the “high desire partner.” Many times, people become “grid-locked” over these differences leading to power struggles, which exacerbate the problem. Although the two partners have different sexual interest levels, this can be negotiated and resolved in sex therapy.
Individual Therapy
Individual therapy involves regularly scheduled sessions between client and therapist for 50 minutes per week every week and is indicated when you feel like you have problems and/or are stuck in your life. In individual therapy, only the therapist will know your secrets. During your time together, you can dig deeply into your problems to understand the origin of them and what has to be done in order to change. Often, the therapist will take a psychodynamic and/or cognitive behavioral approach and combine other approaches according to their training and what your needs are. These methods primarily involve talking to the therapist with the goal of resolving your problems through understanding your pain and challenges together.
Therapy can be brief or long-term depending on your goals, which you should determine together with your therapist. Individuals come to therapy for a wide range of reasons including but not limited to; issues of depression, general anxiety, stress, relationship issues, and unresolved childhood experiences. Additionally, some may want to have a better self-image, work towards removing blocks to achieve their potential, or confront issues of self-esteem or body issues.
Treatment of Compulsive Sexual Disorders
Sexual addiction is often characterized as a problem that involves any type of uncontrollable sexual activity that is secretive, shaming or abusive. Addicts report that after they engage in these behaviors they often feel distressed and full of despair. Denial causes the sex addict to ignore or minimize the problem, justify and/or rationalize the consequences, and/or blame others. Often early childhood trauma lies at the root of the problem.
Treatment includes individual work with a therapist that focuses on stopping the painful and troublesome behaviors. A comprehensive assessment period takes place whereby a full history of the patient is examined. This includes: etiology of the problem, points of escalation, current stressors, family of origin issues, past trauma and current health concerns. A complete diagnosis is then made and together with the therapist, clearly defined treatment plans and recommendations are discussed. As part of this cognitive/behavioral, task-oriented approach, a sexual sobriety plan is constructed leading many to experience sexual abstinence for the first time in their lives. By the end of thirty days on this plan, people often report a sense of well-being, relief from lying and leading a double life, a restored sense of dignity and hope for a future free of sexually compulsive behaviors. Once 30 days of sexual sobriety is attained and maintained, group therapy is recommended.
Sexual Sobriety Plan
Every individual has the dignity to choose his or her own concept of healthy sexuality. It is not the sex in and of itself that is the issue, rather it is the different ways that sex is used that causes the problems. Or put another way, sex is a problem if it causes problems; if one feels out of control and is powerless over their behavior and if the sex leads to feelings of demoralization. Recovery from sexual addiction, similar to other behavioral addictions, is different from recovery from substance addictions like alcoholism and drug addiction, in that sexual addicts do not need to become completely celibate from all sexual behavior to recovery from their sexual addiction. It is this reason that a sexual sobriety plan is employed for recovery from sex addiction.
In recovery, sexual addicts develop a three-part sexual sobriety plan that is used as a guide through recovery and helps with gaining clarity. Each addict identifies which sexual behaviors they are powerless over and lead to feelings of demoralization. These are called “bottom-line behaviors” and are the compulsions and addictive behaviors that are abstained from. As part of each addict’s addictive cycle, there are specific sets of compulsions that lead to the bottom-line behaviors. These are referred to as “triggers” and are abstained from as well. However, there are also sexual behaviors that are acceptable or even experienced with a sense of gratitude and enjoyment. These are sexual behaviors that lead to happiness, well-being and health.
By separating sexual behaviors into three categories, addicts are able to more readily distinguish between behaviors that are compulsive and destructive, behaviors that are “triggers” to those compulsive, and behaviors that are positive and foster healthy sex. Because sex addiction has many different manifestations, sexual sobriety plans are a reflection of this variety and therefore are unique to each recovering sex addict.
Sexual addicts in recovery reach out to other sexual addicts and share their program with one another as part of a balanced recovery program. Without clarity, an addict can continue to act out sexually, because it is easy to become confused about what sobriety is. Obtaining and maintaining abstinence from one’s bottom-line compulsions is a foundation for personal growth in recovery.
Treatment of Compulsive Sexual Disorders
Love addiction is best described as the repeated, compulsive seeking of a relationship or romantic experience despite negative social, psychological and/or physical consequences. Or put another way, according to Pia Mellody, author of “Facing Love Addiction,” a love addict is someone who is dependent on, enmeshed with, and compulsively focused on another person. They will go through life with unrealistic hopes for love that are fueled by underlying fears of abandonment, rejection and pain. With love probably their least familiar real experience, a love addict has the need to control the relationship. Often confusing sex for love, they will use sex to manipulate the relationship or they will use it as an exchange for feeling loved.
Love addicts allocate an unbalanced amount of time, attention and value to the person that they are addicted to (i.e., their “qualifier”), and this focus usually has an obsessive quality. Love addicts have unrealistic expectations for feeling love, which is experienced in the following ways: as consuming and obsessive; as inhibited; as avoiding risk or change; as lacking true intimacy; as manipulative and dependent; as demanding the loved one's devotion. While they are in or recovering from an addictive relationship, love addicts will tend to neglect to care for themselves, placing the importance of the relationship over themselves. (read more)
Love Addiction Treatment
Love addiction manifests in a person’s life when they become dependent on the object of their love. Whereas sex addicts are addicted to the “high” of being aroused, love addicts are addicted to the “high” of feeling in love. Their addiction can take the form of putting others needs before their own well-being, trying to control others so that they can get their needs met, often at the other's expense. A key way to identify dependent love is how the person feels when the other shows disapproval. In love addiction, when the love object threatens to leave, either physically or psychologically, desperate behaviors tend to escalate. Dependent love is always self-serving and a way to avoid looking more deeply at oneself.
The excitement most people feel when they meet a person they are romantically interested in is a normal part of the bonding experience. However, a love addict pushes this excitement to euphoric levels by engaging is compulsive fantasy, imagining ideal love, feeling instant closeness and a complete connection. This euphoria is the “drug of choice” for the love addict. This is their high; which is commonly accompanied by poor decision making because love addicts believe relationships to be closer and more meaningful, particularly in their beginning stages, than they actually are. As a result, love addicts may commit to a relationship much sooner and more intensely than that relationship can in reality tolerate. This leads to engaging in behaviors that are too early and inappropriate for the relationship, such as having sex, moving in together, committing to partnership or marriage, and commingling money, to name a few. These developments frequently lead to problems in the relationship, which the love addict has difficulty attributing as a result of their own poor boundaries and decisions. The problem is either externalized and blamed on the shortcomings of their partner (i.e. “it’s his/her fault, not mine”) or all the blame is assumed as it is internalized and attributed to their own worthiness (i.e., “if I were a better lover, then this wouldn’t have happened,” etc.). Either way, the actual problem is never addressed and the cycle is eventually repeated.
Treatment for love addiction includes looking at obsessive tendencies and the addiction to fantasy as a way to avoid pain and past hurts. Through an extensive sexual/relational history, pains of the past and traumatic relationships are identified and explored. Boundary plans are constructed to clearly identify the persons and places that lead to and encourage destructive behaviors and relationships. Healthy coping mechanisms are identified and put into place for support as well as learning essential self-care habits, including how to self-soothe and stay in the present. Core work is on the development of the self and learning how to have intimate connections with others while tolerating anxiety.
Take a Love Addiction SELF TEST
Sex Addiction Group Therapy
Group therapy is acknowledged as the most effective form of treatment for sex addicts. Group focuses on shame reduction, maintaining sexual sobriety through high levels of accountability, the value of honesty, being congruent in all areas of life, and expressing feelings. In addiction, addicts become lonely, withdrawn and isolated. Group therapy aids in creating intimate bonds by encouraging group members to have explicit conversations about their sexuality, body image, relationships, and life struggles. In an environment that supports sexual sobriety, integrates, normalizes and celebrates eroticism, sexual health can unfold.
Recovery from sexual addiction, as with other behavioral addictions, is different from recovery from substance addictions like alcoholism and drug addiction, in that sexual addicts do not need to become completely celibate from sex to recovery from their sexual addiction. It is not the sex in and of itself that is the issue, rather it is the different ways that sex is used that causes the problems. Or put another way, sex is a problem if it causes problems; if one feels out of control and is powerless over their behavior and if the sex leads to feelings of demoralization.
In recovery, sexual addicts develop a three-part sexual sobriety plan that is used as a guide through recovery and helps gain clarity. It assists in determining which behaviors are compulsive and destructive, which behaviors are triggers leading to those behaviors and it shows which behaviors positive and foster healthy sex. Sexual sobriety plans are unique to each recovering sex addict.
Sexual addicts in recovery reach out to other sexual addicts and share their program with one another as part of a balanced recovery program. Without clarity an addict can continue to act out sexually, because it is easy to become confused about what sobriety is. Obtaining and maintaining abstinence from one’s bottom-line compulsions is the bedrock foundation for personal growth in recovery.
Each sex addict identifies which sexual behaviors they are powerless over and lead to feelings of demoralization. These are the bottom-line compulsions and addictive behaviors that are abstained from. Each addict has his or her own specific set of compulsions and “triggers” from which it is necessary to abstain from as well. However, there are sexual behaviors that are acceptable or even experienced with a sense of gratitude and enjoyment. Therefore, each individual has the dignity to choose his or her own concept of healthy sexuality.
Sexual Health
Healthy sex is relational sex, where partners are aware of and respect each other’s vulnerabilities. For this to occur, each partner must be willing to be vulnerable and willing develop an awareness of and communicate their boundaries and motivations to their partner. Communication is essential to healthy sex. Healthy sex between partners does not exploit the other person’s weaknesses and/or past trauma. Before, during and after relational sex, feelings are shared and the experience of healthy sex fosters a deepening of the relationship; Spirituality, self-worth and sexual joy are all enriched as a result of a genuinely shared sexual experience.
In unhealthy relationships there are barriers instead of intimacy, where people are often fearful of self-disclosure. These barriers between partners:
- Indicates distrust
- Lowers self-worth
- Builds defensiveness
- Increases isolation within the relationship
- Denies personal responsibility
- Prevents efforts to work on common problems
- Intensifies an addictive system
In healthy relationships, intimacy is possible when people accept the risk of rejection and reveal their internal struggles. Self-disclosure between partners:
- Indicates trust
- Builds self-worth
- Affirms the other person
- Increases connectedness within the relationship
- Takes responsibility for one’s own actions and feelings
- Shares common problems
- Interrupts unhealthy behaviors
A healthy relationship is not based on obsessions and compulsions; it does not thrive on positive and negative intensity. In healthy relationships, you are able to nurture others in a way that promotes responsibility for themselves, thereby increasing their self-esteem. When you love yourself, you are able to nurture yourself, focus on your own emotional and spiritual growth, and take responsibility for yourself, thereby increasing your own sense of self-esteem. When one partner is asked for acts of intimacy or support by the other, each person can say yes or no in a healthy way, without either partner being diminished. The self-esteem of each individual blossoms when nurtured within a healthy relationship.
Distinguishing Healthy Sex from Unhealthy Sex
Sexual expression can be healthy across a wide range of activities. Distinguishing healthy sex from unhealthy sex (such as sexual addiction and sexual anorexia) depends more on the person's motivation and the consequences of the behavior than on the actual sexual behavior. Similar to eating disorders, sexual disorders can manifest as both sexual aversion (anorexia) and sexual addiction (compulsion). At one end of the continuum is sexual anorexia, which is compulsive sexual disengagement or aversion. This is essentially sexual starvation. At the other end is sexual addiction, which is compulsive sexual engagement. Both aversion and compulsion are non-relational manifestations of an intimacy problem, underpinned by a fear of emotional injury and abandonment.
The sexual anorexic is terrified of sexual experiences and will go to tremendous lengths to control, limit or avoid sex altogether. For this person, sex has been targeted as the source of their pain and is to be tempered in spite of personal and relational costs. The sexual addict, on the other hand, is charged by sexual experiences and will go to tremendous lengths to sex provides engage in sexual behavior. For this person, relief from their pain and is to be engaged in regardless of personal and relational costs. Addictive sexuality and sexual aversion are like most other compulsive behaviors: a destructive twist on a normal life-enhancing activity. Both behaviors erode self-worth and lead to sexual despair, although both compulsions were functional in the early stages of their development. This is because the behavior not only alleviates pain, but also serves to protect the individual from further hurt and abandonment, which was experienced at an earlier time in their life.
As the sexual anorexic and sexual addict recover from their respective compulsive activities, healthy sexual behavior is introduced through guidelines delineating healthy from unhealthy, with a designated “gray area” in between, meaning those activities that are either questionable or simply neutral. By redirecting sexual behavior, the anorexic and addict are challenged to confront their fears of intimacy, to step outside their comfort zone and experience healthy relational sex. Healthy relational sex can be a powerful vehicle to personal growth, sharing feelings, increasing self-esteem and healing from the hurt and abandonment the anorexic and addict experienced earlier in life.
(partially excerpted from Pia Melody, “Facing Love Addiction”)
Partner's Group Therapy
Because of the intense feelings of shame, betrayal and isolation that many partners experience, we strongly recommend that partners join one of our weekly support groups, created especially to support them in their struggle to come to terms with their partner’s sex addiction and explore the roles they might play in their partner’s addictive cycle.
In our 10-week Partner support groups, group members explore and confront the following concerns and questions:
- Since learning about your partner’s sexual addiction, have you been suffering from intense feelings of betrayal, anger, grief and anxiety?
- Are you too ashamed of your partner’s addiction to tell friends and family, people who might otherwise be able to offer you support?
- Are you preoccupied with your partner’s addiction at the expense of your own needs and self-care?
- Has your preoccupation with your partner’s actions led to a sense of loss of self compounded by an erosion of your own self-esteem?
- Are you prepared for your partner to disclose all of their past sexual behaviors to you?
- What effect has learning about your partner’s addiction had on your own sexuality?
- Do you feel excessive responsibility for your partner’s actions and behaviors?
- In what ways have you enabled your partner’s addiction or rescued them from the consequences of their actions?
- What are the ways in which you denied or ignored signs of your partner’s addiction?
If you are the partner or spouse of a person struggling with sexual addiction, please know that we at CHS are here to provide confidential support and care for you during this challenging time. We want to help you transform a deeply upsetting experience into the beginning of a period of time marked by profound individual growth and deep interpersonal connection, laying a strong foundation for enjoying truly honest, truly fulfilling intimate relationships.
Partner's Group Therapy
Group therapy usually meets for two hours per week every week. It provides an opportunity to meet other people who share similar problems providing you with a wider perspective of your own problems. Listening to and empathizing with others can assist in helping you understand that you too can handle problems when life is difficult. Feedback, emotional support, and encouragement from group members provides perspective that there are several ways to handle your problems and that you are not alone in your struggles. People tend to report great value in being in community with other people and that they learn how they affect others and how to practice being intimate with others.
Men’s sex addiction treatment group – Monday 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Alex Katehakis alex
centerforhealthysex.com
Men’s sex addiction treatment group – Monday 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Jenner Bishop jennercenterforhealthysex.com
Partners of Sex Addicts – Wednesday 7:00- 9:00 pm
Suzanne Pelka Suzanne@centerforhealthysex.com
Men’s sex addiction treatment group – Thursday 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Aaron Alan aaroncenterforhealthysex.com
Men’s sex addiction treatment group – Thursday 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Jenner Bishop jennercenterforhealthysex.com
Gay men’s sexuality group – Mondays 6:30-8:30
Chris Donaghue chriscenterforhealthysex.com
Sex Therapy
Sex therapy is the treatment of any form of sexual dysfunction, such as low sexual desire, lack of sexual confidence, painful sex, anorgasmia, premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, or unwanted sexual fetishes. Sex therapy can also help people who are recovering from childhood sexual abuse, sexual addiction or sexual assault. The goal of sex therapy is not only to help people heal from their sexual problems but to assist them in reaching their sexual potential.
Recovering Couples Therapy
In the case of couples in recovery from sexual addiction, the betrayed partner often feels pain, anger and distrust while the partner responsible for the betrayal can exhibit shame and passivity. There are usually years of built up pain and resentment causing an avoidance of intimacy and problems with sexual desire. Couples facing recovery from sexual addiction have a better chance of staying married if they commit to a rigorous course of treatment both separately and together. Issues such as safety, how to proceed during the first three to six months, sexual boundaries, concerns about children in the household, and lifestyle issues are addressed early on. Additionally, resources are provided for both parties on where to get information and education to better understand the problem and begin the repair process.
Over time, the couple will begin to address their concerns about being sexual with one another and be assisted in having explicit conversations about creating their ideal sex life. Education and information about what healthy intimacy and healthy sexuality is will be provided to support their mutual vision for their future.
Healthy Sexuality
Healthy Sexuality adds to one’s well-being and is therefore free from behaviors or energy that creates destruction to ones psyche, feelings and physical body. There is a feeling of wholeness and a sense of being restored to a wholesome person. Engaging in healthy sex can have a tone of simplicity to it that feels beneficial, healthful and sound. A person might feel they are restoring their character as a result of the sexual act because it feels good in the moment and leaves them feeling good afterwards. Healthy sex is free from shame and pain and does not create disorder or drama in the participant's life.
Couples/Sex Therapy
Couples seeking couples therapy are often at a point of emotional gridlock and are usually looking for hope that they can restore themselves and the life they have built with one another. People are often fearful and wary at this time and may doubt if they can risk choosing their partner and making themselves emotionally vulnerable. Sex therapy addresses problems with arousal, genital functioning and differences in desire for sex all of which can have a couple feeling wounded and stuck.
In therapy, the focus is on repairing the hurts and resentments of the past, family-of-origin traumas, and/or unresolved childhood issues all of which can shape a relationship and impact the couple. What is required in session is the willingness to confront oneself, to disclose the truth about thoughts and feelings, and to tolerate anxieties without expecting partner validation or soothing, and learning to soothe oneself. All of this is in service of becoming more vulnerable in order to create a deep, satisfying, long-lasting connection with your partner.
As the therapy addresses these issues, co-dependent dynamics begin to shift and the couple moves out of a blame and shame cycle. As each person develops a more solid sense of self and becomes clear about whom they are, emotionally honest movement towards a healthy interdependency begins to form thereby creating integrity, self-esteem and sexual desire.
Co-Dependant Dynamics
Codependency has become a standard relational style for many couples today. The frequent conflicts, lack of intimacy, and distancing behaviors that appear to result from a lack of communication and compatibility can instead be common signs of a codependent relationship. Not knowing how to identify needs, looking to your partner for constant validation, only expressing "acceptable" emotions, and having no voice within the relationship are markers for an enmeshed relational system. Codependents easily take on the feelings and thoughts of their partners which can reinforce the weakening of one's personal boundaries. Therapy can aid couples and individuals in learning how to develop more self-validation and differentiation from their partners which, in turn, can increase self-esteem, communication, and intimacy. Breaking free of co-dependence gives one more power and ownership over their lives.
EMDR
EMDR is an acronym for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a physiologically based therapy that allows the client to see disturbing material in a new and less distressing way.
While EMDR is best known for treatment of post-traumatic stress reactions, it is also used to treat anxiety, depression, grief reactions, phobias, and self-esteem issues. EMDR can alleviate performance anxiety and enhance an individual's functioning at work, in sports, and in the performing arts.
EMDR therapy uses "bilateral stimulation" (e.g., right/left eye movement, or tactile stimulation, or sound), which activates the brain's opposite hemispheres and releases emotional experiences "trapped" in the nervous system. This assists the neurophysiological system -- the basis of the mind/body connection -- to free itself of blockages and reconnect itself.
Psychological Testing
Psychological testing services include administration, scoring, interpretation, report writing, and feedback sessions. Testing can illuminate personality structures, and help elucidate issues underlying sexual addiction and the coping strategies that perpetuate patterns of addictive behavior.
Partner's Individual Therapy
Individuals that struggle with sex addiction are not the only people affected by their addiction. Often partners or spouses find themselves reeling once they discover their loved one is addicted to compulsive sexual behaviors such as compulsive masturbation to pornography, having anonymous sex, hiring prostitutes, or engaging in exhibitionism, etc. For a long time only the sex addicts themselves were brought in for treatment by therapists. Today, we at CHS recognize the need to create a therapeutic safe space for partners to process their parallel experience of their partner’s sexual addiction. One of our specialties at CHS is to create supportive treatment plans for partners (often referred to in the addiction treatment community as co-sex addicts. Such treatment plans often include individual, couples and group work. Individual therapy includes helping the partner to make sense of what has happened, getting clear about personal boundaries, and preparing for the sex addict’s disclosure. We provide strictly confidential individual psychotherapy treatment for partners and, when appropriate, we will recommend couples’ therapy.
