What is sex addiction?

• It’s important to understand that sex addiction is often used as an umbrella term.

• Sex addiction is characterized by a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges, resulting in repetitive sexual behaviour over an extended period (6 months or more) that causes marked distress or impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

  What is porn addiction?

• Porn addiction is a sex addiction, where the primary compulsive sexual behaviour is through digital media.

  What is love addiction?

• Love addiction is when relationships are used in an attempt to cope, self-sooth, or regulate uncomfortable or intolerable experiences and emotional states. This differs from healthy co-regulation

• You may find yourself in a pattern of relationships that are chaotic and unstable, causing more affective dysregulation.

  What do you mean by concurrent disorders?

• Addiction is a symptom of trauma. Often, there’s underlying relational and/or developmental trauma and/or mental illness. Addiction is our attempt to cope and regulate.

  What approach do you use?

• Like most areas of my practice, I use an eclectic approach. Specifically with sex, porn, and love addiction, I use the 30-Task Model with aspects of cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, motivational interviewing, narrative therapy, family systems therapy, and attachment therapy with a trauma-informed, psychosocial, and harm reduction lens.

“I don’t really think I have an issue with addiction, but others do.”

• Perhaps you’d consider an addiction and trauma assessment.