The sex addiction movement addresses fundamental human (and therefore clinical) issues: lust, desire, guilt, fantasy, decision-making, and the relationship of love and sex. The answers generated by this model, however, have important limitations—and for many people, they are disastrous, contradicting the best practices of psychotherapy and couples counseling.
We will examine how patients’ impulsive or seemingly out-of-control sexual behavior may really involve:
- medicating their depression, anxiety or anhedonia
- acting out unconscious hostility
- an arousal disorder
- denial of a disturbing sexual preference or orientation
- fear of getting too close to a primary partner
- a recurring sexual dysfunction with a primary partner
- inadequate attraction to, or unspoken resentment toward, a primary partner
- attempting to remain in a low-sex or no-sex relationship
- unresolved conflict with religious values
Why does it matter what we call (supposedly) out-of-control sexual behavior? Why are the overwhelming majority of patients diagnosed as sex addicts men—and what does that mean?
Most importantly, how can we best diagnose and treat patients with problematic sexual decision-making?
We’ll also look at the new narrative of porn addiction, and how it’s used to claim that porn is now a public health problem (rather than an old-fashioned immorality problem).
- Do neuroscience and social psychology actually support this diagnosis?
- What are our options when a patient is convinced he’s a porn addict—or begs to be diagnosed (and treated) as one to appease his partner?
- How do we evaluate patients who seem to be using porn self-destructively?
- How can we treat these patients most effectively?
Educational Objectives
This webinar will teach the participant to
- Name three shortcomings of the sex addiction model
- Name three possible explanations for problematic sexual decision-making.
- Describe three clinical approaches to reducing problematic sexual decision-making.
- Describe three clinical approaches to addressing couples’ conflicts about porn use.
Syllabus
- The sex addiction movement: history, features, diagnostic criteria
- Examples of sex addiction
- How the principles of “sex addiction” contradict best practices of psychotherapy and couples counseling
- Patients’ narratives of their sexual behavior and decision-making
- Clinical beliefs and assumptions that shape our diagnoses and treatment of sexuality cases
- How therapists privilege monogamy—and how that limits our diagnoses and treatment
- What is our model of healthy sexual behavior?
- Effective treatment options for cases involving sexual behavior and decision-making
- Data that challenges the porn addiction model
- When patients undermine themselves with porn
- Working effectively with couples in conflict about one partner’s porn use
