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A Troubled Past: When to Remember, When to Forget
We often hear two conflicting messages about the painful events of the past. Treatment for addiction and psychological problems involves remembering working through hurtful experiences. At the same...
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5 Surprising Ways to Make More Time in Your Day
Getting pulled in all different directions, putting out fires, dealing with one problem after another—pretty soon the day is gone. Many of us can’t find time to work on our own growth and recovery...
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The Myth of the “Normal” Childhood: Why are you a Sex Addict?
It is not unusual for sex addicts to ask “How did I get this way? I had such an ordinary childhood.” Nobody survives childhood unwounded. And many kinds of stressful or frightening experiences can...
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Why is Institutional Betrayal so Traumatic?
Since the posting on psychcentral a year ago of the article called “Organizational Infidelity Amplifies Sexual Trauma“there has been a great deal of attention paid to the poor handling of sexual trauma...
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Dissociation: A Crucial Problem for Sex Addiction Treatment
We have always known that recovery from sex addiction involved regaining integrity. By this we usually mean that practicing sex addicts typically have a secret life. They are the all-around good guy as...
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Waiting to Trust: Life in Recovery Limbo
For the partner of a sex addict, even one who is in recovery for a year or two, mistrust can develop a life of its own. The addict seems to be doing everything right but for some reason you are unable...
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The Inner World of a Sex Addict
A reader asked how it feels for a sex addict to lead a double life. This is an interesting question and to some extent the answer is “It depends on the addict.” New studies in progress using the MMPI...
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9 Good Reasons to Stay with a Sex Addict
I do not take sides on the issue of whether it is better to stay in a marriage or committed relationship with a sex addict or whether it is better to get away and start over. I think there are many...
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Using Polygraph Tests to Keep Sex Addicts Honest
Asking a sex addict to take a polygraph seemed ludicrous to me at first. First off, it seems like something you do with a criminal, not with a patient who has come in for help with a sexually...
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Making Friends with Your Inner Sex Addict
We commonly think of our sex addict self as bad. And indeed the addict part of us does things that harm others and ourselves and that usually go against our deeply held values. We would like to...
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4 Types of Subtle Manipulation
Manipulation can be very subtle. We often talk about how manipulative addicts are. And in particular we talk about how sex addicts manipulate others in order to avoid discovery, throw their partner off...
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Sex Addiction Recovery Takes a Long Time– or Not
People seeking help for sex addiction are anxious to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They are often stunned when I tell them that, even for those who are diligent and motivated, the whole...
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No Higher Power? No Problem
Perhaps you feel stalled out by the spiritual aspect of 12-step programs, all that religious sounding stuff. But before you go out and find a new variation on the 12 steps, one that has been purged of...
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The 10 Biggest Myths about Sex Addiction Treatment
These 10 things are not so much myths as they are distortions born of fear and misinformation. When people do not understand sex addiction treatment they may see it as suspect or threatening in some...
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New Treatment Models for Teen Porn Addiction
The enormous global proliferation of online pornography has made a vast array of sexually explicit material available to a large teen audience on laptops, tablets and smart phones. And if smart...
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Can Serial Cheaters Change?
A reader posted this question as to whether serial cheaters can change. In thinking about it I realized the answer is not a simple yes or no. Many factors enter into the prognosis for serial cheating...
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6 Ways Helping Others Helps Addicts Recover
Addicts are afraid of other people. Sex addiction has been aptly described as an intimacy disorder, a disorder resulting from an avoidance of intimacy and a compartmentalization of one’s life and one’s...
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How Denial Works in Sex Addiction
Denial is a form of distorted thinking. In fact it is a masterpiece of distorted thinking. Breaking through denial marks the beginning of addiction treatment. This is just as true for sexual addiction...
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The Whack-a-Mole Effect: Tackling New Addictions in Sexual Recovery
Sex Addicts in recovery have worked hard to identify their damaging addictive sexual behaviors such as out-of-control porn use, constant sexual hook-ups, or the obsessive pursuit of commercial sex. And...
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Sadistic Sex: Orientation, Addiction or Lifestyle?
The mother of a 15 year old boy recently reached out to one of my colleagues for advice regarding her son’s seemingly out-of-control preoccupation with kinky sex and highly sadistic pornography. (This...
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