Sex Addiction

Sexual addiction can deeply affect your life, love, and relationships, requiring a lot of effort to keep secrets or lead a double life, which can be exhausting and lead to devastating hardships. You might find that thoughts about sex consume a significant part of your day and have a powerful hold over your mind. Whether it's an issue with pornography, compulsive masturbation, engaging in online or in-person relationships outside your primary partnership, or other behaviors that you struggle to control and keep hidden, it can make you feel like you're losing control. Many individuals realize that, over time, they're drawn to more extreme behaviors that cross the boundaries they want to maintain, boundaries they never thought they would violate. You may feel shame by your acting out behaviors, yet be unable to stop them. Living in line with your values is what you want but you may only be motivated to seek help after being caught.

While addictive behaviors cause pain, addiction is really about the avoidance of feeling pain! Behind addiction, there's often hidden trauma, and it is vital to realize that the addiction is actually an attempt to ease or numb the deeper emotional pain that's already there. It’s been used as your best, perhaps favorite strategy to temporarily find relief from the distress and discomfort that stems from underlying trauma or emotional wounds.

This understanding is a compassionate and empowering realization. It allows you to acknowledge that addiction, while problematic, is a strategy that you discovered, maybe long ago, and used in response to deep-seated pain. By addressing the root causes of addiction and healing the underlying trauma, you will open the door to true recovery and a path towards lasting relief and well-being. Recognizing the connection between addiction and emotional pain is a pivotal step in your journey towards a healthier, happier life.

Living with trauma, pain, anxiety, and out of control behaviors for a prolonged period affects your nervous system, keeping it in a heightened, activated state. With this in mind, I find it extremely helpful and healing to use Somatic Experiencing, a trauma modality which focuses on sensations in the body to help discharge trauma and relax the nervous system. We will work together to help you clear the fog that addiction causes and gain clarity and healthy strategies for living a healthy, honest life moving forward.

Realizing and admitting these challenges to yourself is an extremely courageous step towards finding healing and regaining control over your life and relationships. There is help available and it's proven to bring back balance and recovery to those who seek it. You don't have to be a prisoner to your desires. Your addiction itself has meaning. I will hold a safe and supportive space for you to gain understanding and insight about how addiction became part of your life, why sex became your drug of choice, and how it has tried to help you survive. Understanding these is crucial to your recovery.

Together we will work to help you restore balance and boundaries in your choices/behaviors, bring healing to where there has been hurt, and connection to your authentic self – your values and your essence!