Has my sexual behaviour become problematic?
- Does your sexual behaviour or porn use have a significant negative impact on other areas of your life such as maintaining or forming relationships, spending time with family and friends, concentrating on work or studies?
- Are you getting into debt, are you risking your mental or physical health or do you find it more and more difficult to maintain personal and legal boundaries because of your sexual compulsion?
- Do you find yourself struggling to concentrate on other areas of your life because you are preoccupied with thoughts and feelings about your porn use or sexual behaviour?
- Have you noticed that you need more and more stimuli or risk, or that you are watching what you would describe as more extreme porn, in order to achieve the same level of arousal and excitement?
- Have you tried to limit your porn use or sexual behaviour, or stop all together, but repeatedly failed?
If you are interested in counselling, book here or contact me for more information:
For a deeper understanding of the brain in sex addiction you may read this article.
I offer online counselling through video call for clients struggling with sex and porn addiction.
I hold an extra qualification in this specialised area (CPCAB accredited ISAT Diploma, UK).
Your identity will be treated with the strictest confidentiality. The only limitations to confidentiality are the ones mentioned in my terms and conditions.
I do not work with sex offenders.
An important resource for daily work: The Five Step Method
This method is about transforming the automatic mind—the lack of impulse control—through conscious attention, which could be helpful for behavioural addictions / compulsive behaviours, like sex and porn addiction, but also for OCD; the latter could be seen as both a behavioural and/or a thinking addiction (maybe with the specifics that OCD does not provide any pleasure). Both, addiction and OCD, seem to be rooted in stories and beliefs that do not match reality.
Step 1: Re-Label
Label the addictive thought as what it is when it comes up. For example, say “I don’t need that now, I’m only having an obsessive thought that I have such a need. It is not a real, objective need, but a false belief. I may have feelings of urgency, but there is actually nothing urgent going on.” Be as conscious as possible when you say that to yourself.
Step 2: Re-Attribute
Place the blame on your brain: “This is my brain sending me a false message.” State it very clearly. State very clearly that this addictive urge originates in early programming of neurological circuits in childhood.
Step 3: Re-Focus
Buy yourself time. Know that in spite of the intensity of the urge, it will pass. And you have to give it time to pass. Find something else to do. It’s not how you feel that counts, it’s what you do.
Step 4: Re-Value
Remind yourself of the disastrous impact of the addictive urge in your life. Where love and vitality should be, addiction roots. The more clearly you see how things are, the more liberated you will be. De-value the false gold. What has this addiction done to me? Write it down: It has caused me to……It has wasted my time. It has led me to lie and cheat and to pretend—first to myself and then to everyone close to me. It promised joy and delivered bitterness. My addictive compulsion has caused me to betray my true values and disregard my true goals. Write this several times a day, if necessary. Be conscious and specific. How did it impact your relationship with people who are close to you? What happened in the past when you allowed the urge to rule you? Pay attention how you feel when you recall these events. Do all this without judging yourself. You are just gathering information. It’s not a trial against yourself.
Step 5: Re-Create
You have values. You have passion. You have intentions, talent, capability. In your heart there is love, and you want to connect that with the love in the world, in the universe. As you re-label, re-attribute, re-focus, re-value, you are releasing patterns that have held you and that you have held on to. In place of a life blighted by your addictive need for self-soothing, oblivion, admiration, meaningless activity, what is the life you really want? Consider what creative activities you can engage in? Mindfully honouring our creativity helps us transcend the feeling of deficient emptiness that drives addiction. Not to express our creative needs causes stress itself. Write down your values and intentions with conscious awareness. Envision yourself living with integrity, creative and present, being able to look people in the eye with compassion for them—and for yourself.
(From: Gabor Maté (2018). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction)
Together with counselling—or as a first alternative to counselling?—you can also make use of an affordable, anonymous podcast-based 60 day online programme:
