What I can help with
Compulsive Sexual Behaviour
Compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) — sometimes referred to as "sex addiction" or "porn addiction" — is an increasingly common concern, and one that carries a great deal of shame. That shame is often part of what makes it hard to address.
CSB can take many forms: excessive use of pornography, the use of sex workers, or sexual behaviour connected with drugs or "chems." What these have in common is a pattern that feels out of control — behaviour the person regrets, resolves to stop, and finds themselves returning to. The cycle of drive, act, remorse, and repeat is characteristic, and exhausting.
The costs can be significant. There are potential physical risks — STIs, dangerous situations, the pull of addictive substances.
There are financial costs. And there is often a profound cost to relationships and family life, either through the behaviour itself or through its discovery. Excessive porn use in particular can affect work, intrude into daily life, and leave a pervasive feeling of wasted time and lost agency.
It is worth saying clearly, however, that CSB is not a moral failing. Like most behaviour that feels compulsive, it is rarely the problem itself — it is more often a solution to something else: a way of managing anxiety, loneliness, emotional disconnection, or states of feeling that are hard to name or tolerate. Understanding what the behaviour has been doing for you is usually more useful than simply trying to stop it.
Defining any person's sexual activity as compulsive is, of course, entirely subjective. If you feel your behaviour is out of control, is having self-destructive consequences, or is accompanied by dread or remorse, it may be helpful to think of it as CSB — not as a label, but as a starting point for understanding.
I will work with you to explore what underlies the behaviour; what the risk situations are; and what it is about CSB that "works" in a way that other sexual or emotional experiences perhaps don't.
CSB therapy is about understanding and creating choices. It is not about shame or judgement — and that, for most people, is where it has to begin.