Sexual addiction is not about too much sex or the ‘wrong’ kind of sex. Sexual addiction is a process that happens for people in that they learn, very often in childhood, but sometimes in adolescence or later, to use sexual fantasy and behaviour to manage the problems and troubles of life.

But, for some people, the behaviour can bring with it painfully experienced harmful consequences: personal, social, occupational and domestic. In much the same way as an alcoholic will use alcohol to manage life, the sex addict does the same, he or she has learned to use sex like a drug.

Although it is not anybody’s fault, sexual addiction is set up in the family of origin, normally as a response to the more difficult aspects of growing up. In some cases this might be a response to sexual, physical, emotional or even spiritual abuse, but equally it might be a response to circumstances beyond the family’s control.

We are especially anxious to avoid trying to assign blame for addiction. We look at the family of origin not to blame but to try and understand how the addiction was set up, how it works, and the things that trigger addictive responses in the here and now.