• Sexual addiction, also often referred to as hypersexuality, sexual dependency and compulsive sexual behavior disorder, is a condition that involves the sufferer becoming excessively preoccupied with thoughts or behaviors that give a desired sexual effect.
• More than 30 million people suffer from a sexual addiction in the United States alone.
• Paraphilias are disorders that involve the sufferer becoming sexually aroused by objects or actions considered less conventional and/or less easily accessible to the sex addict.
• The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) classifies sexual addictions as specific paraphilic disorders or as other specified paraphilic disorders.
• No one factor causes sexual addiction, but there are thought to be biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to the development of these disorders.
• Sex addicts suffer from a negative pattern of sexual behavior that leads to significant problems or distress.
• As is true with virtually any other mental health diagnosis, there is no one test that definitively indicates that someone has a sexual addiction. Therefore, health care practitioners diagnose these disorders by gathering comprehensive medical, family, and mental health information to distinguish sexual addiction from medical and other mental health disorders.
• Many people with a sexual addiction benefit from the support and structure of recovery groups or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). When compulsive sexual behaviors become severe, the sufferer may require inpatient treatment or participation in an intensive outpatient treatment program.
• Serotonergic (SSRI) antidepressants, antiseizure medications, naltrexone, and medications that decrease male hormones decrease the compulsive urges and/or impulses associated with sexual addictions for some sufferers.
• The prognosis of sexual addictions depends on a number of factors.
• Prevention of sexual addiction may involve interventions that enhance self-esteem and self-image, addressing emotional problems, educating children about the dangers of excessive internet use, monitoring and limiting computer use, and screening out pornographic sites.
• Sex addiction is associated with a number of potential medical, occupational, legal, social, and emotional complications.
• Research on sexual addiction includes exploring potential risk factors and developing accurate screening and assessment tools for these disorders.

Treatment of Sexual Addiction

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is often the first form of treatment recommended for depression. Called “therapy” for short, the word psychotherapy actually involves a variety of treatment techniques. During psychotherapy, a person with depression talks to a licensed and trained mental health care professional who helps him or her identify and work through the factors that may be causing their depression.

Sometimes these factors work in combination with heredity or chemical imbalances in the brain to trigger depression. Taking care of the psychological and psychosocial aspects of depression is important.

What is sexual addiction, and what are the types of sexual addiction?

Hypersexuality, sexual dependency, and compulsive sexual behavior disorder are other names for sexual addiction. As with other dependencies, sexual addiction is a condition that involves the sufferer becoming excessively preoccupied with thoughts or behaviors that give a desired effect. It involves spending an exorbitant amount of time thinking about and/or engaging in sexually addictive behaviors. Examples of sexual behavioral addictions may involve easily accessible or less accessible (paraphilic) behaviors. Examples of more easily accessible addictive acts may include having one-night stands or multiple affairs, contacts with prostitutes, viewing pornographic pictures or videos, or compulsive masturbation. The sufferer may engage in behaviors like frequenting chat rooms, engaging in personal ads, or making obscene phone calls.

Statistics show that a small percentage of college-aged people suffer from a sex addiction at any one time. In the general adult population, about 12 million people have a sex addiction.

Paraphilias are disorders that involve the sufferer becoming sexually aroused by objects or actions that are less conventional or less easily accessible to the addict. Examples of paraphilias include fetishism (arousal by objects or specific body parts), voyeurism (arousal by watching sexual behaviors), exhibitionism (arousal by having others view his or her sexual behaviors) and pedophilia (arousal by sexual contact with children). When paraphilias include the sufferer having obsessions about the object of their desire, they may be considered sexually addicted. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) only refers to nonparaphilic sexual addictions in the category of sexual disorder, not otherwise specified.

Sexually addictive behaviors have been described in modern times for more than 100 years. During the 19th century, people described sex addicts as frenetic masturbators and as having nymphomania (primarily ascribed to women), satyriasis (primarily assigned to men), compulsive sexuality, and sexual intoxication.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save