All About Sex Addiction & How To Overcome it with CBT, Therapy & Counselling

What is a Sex Addiction?

Sex Addiction has entered into the common language of society today and up until recently has not been taken very seriously, although some high profile celebrities have recently “confessed” to being sex addicts. (Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods, Michael Douglas amongst others).

You can read about Addictions in general here.

Sex addiction can place an enormous amount of strain & stress on a relationship but do not think that it is a problem confined to the bedroom.

Sex addicts typically find themselves watching more and more pornography (see Porn Addiction), perhaps paying for sex, or indulging in ever more risky sexual activities.

Sex addiction displays the classic characteristics of any addiction whether that is alcohol addiction, drug addiction or any other and this is probably due to the fact that when we have sex our bodies release massive amounts of Endorphins (pleasure chemicals) into our bloodstream which create feelings of Euphoria.

Sex Addicts spend more and more time seeking this chemical reaction, often neglecting the other things that they should or could be doing with their time.

What are the symptoms of sex addiction?

Sex Addicts often demonstrate single-mindedness in the pursuit of sexual activities and the following symptoms or behaviours could indicate Sex Addiction:-

• Paying for Sex
• Multiple sexual partners in secret
• Sex with strangers on a regular basis
• Swinging
• Spending lots of money on sex phone lines
• Masturbating excessively
• Routinely choosing sex over other important activities
• Needing the buzz of sex more and more

Is Sex Addiction Common?

Judging by the amount of media reports that sex addiction now seems to be attracting it seems likely that this is a bigger problem than once thought.

Although figures of 5% of people has been bandied around, it is likely that the figure is higher and that it just doesn’t get reported as much due to the nature of sexuality and morality in our society.

Men and Women are both affected in equal proportions and the growth of the internet has allowed private indulgence in pornography to grow beyond all measure.

Internet sites have also made it much easier to meet like minded sex addicts are easily accessible from the privacy of your own computer at home.

Therapy & Counselling for Sex Addiction

Tranceform offer a range of psychological therapy and counselling solutions for sex addiction problems which you can read about below.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Sex Addiction

If you’re committed to overcoming your Sex Addiction problems then we highly recommend following our Tranceformental CBT 10 session programme.

The Tranceformental programme is a highly successful & pragmatic psychotherapy course, run over 10 sessions, that will teach you everything you need to know to understand your problem, identify how unhelpful thinking and limiting beliefs might be reinforcing the issue, and then show you how to make any changes to your unhelpful thinking styles or maladaptive safety behaviours that you may have developed as part of your coping strategies.

The programme is also available as an online self-help CBT programme.

Our Tranceformental CBT programme is an empirically supported approach used by mental health practitioners around the World.

Alternative Therapies for Sex Addiction

Although our preferred form of psychological therapy for Sex Addiction is Tranceformental CBT we also offer alternative psychotherapies for those who might prefer a different approach.

These include:

Psychodynamic therapy which focuses more on emotional problems and relies on the Therapeutic Relationship to bring about change. Available with Paul.

General Counselling which is less structured but still provides a safe and non-judgmental environment to discuss issues which is therapeutic in its own right.

Hypnotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that can be applied to a very wide range of problems and is available with Joan.

Free Initial Consultations for Sex Addiction

We offer all prospective clients a FREE initial consultation to discuss your Sex Addiction problems prior to commencing any treatment plans.

The consultation is free and lasts around 50 minutes.

During this consultation we will discuss the various therapy options that are available to you and make a considered recommendation based on your individual personal circumstances.

Initial consultations are also available as part of our online therapy service.

At Tranceform Psychology we recognise the importance of the therapeutic relationship in helping people to bring about effective change, so its important to be able to ‘meet’ to discuss any therapy treatments BEFORE proceeding.

Our policy is to help people make a fully balanced & considered decision about undertaking work with us, including both the financial and personal implications.