Sex Therapy

Most people experience a sexual problem at some point in their life.

Sex is generally considered to be an important part of a healthy relationship, helping to keep the closeness between a couple as well as to give sexual pleasure and release.

But sex can be a problem for lots of different emotional & physical reasons. We can help

Sex Addiction

This is the term used to describe any sexual activity that feels "out of control". If you're struggling with sexual addiction, you'll feel compelled to engage in your chosen activity, in spite of the problems it may cause to yourself and / or your relationships with others.

According to Dr Patrick Carnes, one of the world's leading experts in sexual addiction, there are 10 possible warning signs that you may be a sex addict.

  1. Feeling that your behaviour is out of control.
  2. Being aware that there may be severe consequences if you continue.
  3. Feeling unable to stop your behaviour, in spite of knowing the consequences.
  4. Persistently pursuing destructive and / or high risk activities.
  5. Wanting to stop or control what you are doing and taking active steps to limit your activities.
  6. Using sexual fantasies as a way of coping with difficult feelings or situations.
  7. Needing more and more of the sexual activity in order to experience the same level of high.
  8. Suffering from intense mood swings around sexual activity.
  9. Spending more and more time either planning, engaging in or regretting and recovering from sexual activities.
  10. Neglecting important social, occupational or recreational activities in favour of sexual behaviour.

If these points are ringing true for you, then the first step to overcoming the problem is to acknowledge that you are in the grips of an addiction and that your behaviour has damaging consequences. You need to accept that this problem will not go away by itself and take personal responsibility to recover from your addiction.

The majority of addicts find it very difficult to change their behaviour on their own. You may be able to curtail the behaviour for a while, but often a cycle develops that is extremely hard to break. Face to face therapy either individually or within a group with a trained sexual addiction therapist can help you to understand what is happening and encourage you to take steps to change to a healthier sexual lifestyle. You can get details of a therapist by visiting the British Association of Sexual and Relationship Therapy website at www.basrt.org.uk or you can get details of support groups at the Sex Addicts Anonymous website at www.saa-recovery.org.

If you think your partner my be a sex addict, then the first thing to do is to talk to him or her about it. If he or she can accept that they have a problem and want to change they have a chance to recover from sexual addiction. Relate can help you alone, or you and your partner to cope with the problems that sexual addiction causes in a relationship. You'll need to get specialist help to overcome the actual addiction, but a Relate counsellor can support you as you go through what can often be a very painful and difficult time.