Sexual addiction is the name given to a pattern of sexual behaviour that has the following characteristics:

• It is experienced as preoccupative and out of control
• Individuals find that they cannot stop the behaviour or, more usually, they cannot consistently stay stopped
• The behaviour brings with it real or potential harmful consequences. These may include health risks, professional misconduct, impaired parenting, financial loss, damage to marriage and other primary relationships and the neglect of important personal and vocational goals.
• It tends to be used, often unknowingly, to anaesthetise shame, low self worth, core loneliness, anger, stress and anxiety.

It is a grass roots term that has emerged from the experience of ordinary people to describe what it feels like to be in the hold of these behaviours.

It is not about any particular sexual behaviour but rather about how the behaviour functions, and is subjectively experienced in the life of the individual. It is not a medical disorder but it is a pattern of behaviour that closely parallels the medical diagnostic criteria for substance dependence.

For more information… contact Dr Thaddeus Birchard and Associates.