Sex, Love, & Porn Addiction

Awaken through recovery 

Sex, porn, and love addiction is characterized by compulsive patterns in romance, sexuality and relationships that have harmful consequences for the addict and others in their life.

While sex and romance are a natural and healthy part of relationships, the sex, porn, and love addict uses love or sexual experiences to escape from depression, anxiety, vulnerability, trauma and other life stressors.

For most people seeking help, your compulsive patterns are secretive, shameful, and destructive. In spite of this, you find yourself returning to the behavior again and again, even if it goes against your values and/or harms others.

For some people seeking help, your sexual or romantic behavior may not be an addictive pattern but is still not in accordance with your values or causes harm in your life, such as an affair. If this is the case, you could still benefit from our services.

We strive to understand the devastating impact of sex, porn, and love addiction and your immediate need to address these patterns and behaviors.

We are not simply interested in helping you address behaviors. We see this as only the first step towards the goal of being able to be more fully present in your life. This presence will help you:

  • connect you to your deeper purpose in life
  • live in accordance with your values
  • develop truly intimate relationships with yourself and others

It’s a goal of personal, relational, and spiritual transformation, helping you to connect with the real creative intelligence of life.

Whatever the extent of your problem behaviors with sex, porn, or love, and regardless of your gender, sexual orientation, or lifestyle choices, we work to create a non-judgmental and safe environment so you can grow to trust yourself and fully accept your problems.

We thoroughly assess each person who comes to us for treatment, so that we can tailor evidence-based treatment to meet your specific needs. We offer practical tools and new pathways based on Psychodynamic psychotherapy, CBT, meditation, and the 12-steps program. We offer help for people, and their partners and families, to create a new life, free to move beyond old familiar patterns to create a life of choice, meaning, connection, commitment, and fulfillment.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy … Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

Brene Brown

Sexually compulsive behaviors, also known as sex addiction, can be expressed in a variety of ways. The sexual behaviors are frequently secretive and shameful and can lead to deception, loss of relationship or divorce, isolation and feelings of loss of control, and often escalate in intensity. In spite of this, the individual finds themselves returning to the behavior again and again.

Sexually compulsive behaviors can be expressed in a variety of ways:

  • Sex Addiction/Sex Addicts
  • Pornography addiction
  • Love addiction
  • On-line chats or “dating” sites
  • Infidelity
  • Prostitution or sexual massage
  • Frequent casual encounters
  • Sex in public
  • Purposeful bumping into others
  • Exhibitionism
  • Compulsive masturbation
  • Child pornography
  • Attraction to children or teens
  • Sexual harassment
  • Fetishes
  • Sexual Offending

Pathways Institute also works to help the partners and families of individuals with compulsive disorders. Impulse disorders do not occur in a vacuum; partners and families suffer the painful and often traumatic impact of their loved one’s addiction. Partners and family members are denied intimacy, communication, security and the ability to experience healthy dependency. All too often unhealthy relating patterns occur as partners and family members attempt to manage and try to control their loved ones addiction out of fear and anxiety. These attempts rarely help and leave the partners and family members resentful, depressed and anxious.

We work to create a non-judgmental, non-shaming and safe environment so the individuals struggling with a sexual addiction can begin to trust in themselves and fully accept their problems, free to move beyond the secrets into a meaningful and fulfilling life, and so their partners and family members can fully understand impulse disorders and how to create new healthy ways of relating.

PROGRAM BENEFITS

This program will help individuals

  • Stop acting out in their sexual behaviors
  • Identify high-risk situations that trigger the impulse to act out sexually and develop strategies for overcoming them
  • Restore, repair, and gain stability and intimacy in family and personal life
  • Repair job related problems or revise career plans that have been neglected due to sexual behavior
  • Explore and understand the roots of their sexual behaviors, including stressors, trauma, mood disorders, etc.
  • Begin to have deeper and more meaningful relationships with themselves and others based on a more authentic expression of the self
  • Identify unmet needs and to learn how to meet them in a healthy way, ultimately leading to deeper and more intimate relationships with themselves and others
  • Resolve criminal or other legal problems by providing the court or attorneys with expert assessment and/or treatment
  • Become part of a supportive network of people who have had compulsive sexual behaviors and overcame it
  • Define and implement life-style changes that increase self confidence

Why Seek Treatment?

Often compulsive sexual behaviors will feel mysterious to those who have them, and will cause the person to feel out of control.

  • You don’t understand how to stop the behaviors
  • You experience shameful feelings that prevent you from talking about you problem in order to get the help you need.
  • You don’t understand the impact and consequences of your behavior on yourself and your relationships with others.
  • You are unaware of mental health problems such as impulse disorders, mood disorders, PTSD, and anxiety disorders.
  • You are unaware of available cognitive behavioral and psychotherapeutic treatment options.
  • You are unaware of available psychiatric medication that may benefit them.

For many people, these behaviors are about a longing for connection or an escape from stress or unhappiness. Often these behaviors can be a search for a way to feel soothed, connected, loved or comforted.

In spite of these longings, the behaviors frequently are secretive and shameful and can lead to deception, loss of relationship or divorce, isolation and feelings of loss of control. 

Recovery requires compassion and a willingness to look inside one-self with honesty in order to understand the meaning these behaviors have had in your life.

Individuals can learn to employ new behaviors in order to resist their impulses. They learn to accept responsibility, new ways of coping with the underlying psychological and emotional triggers, create a relapse prevention plan, and repair relationships. New behaviors combined with psychological understanding are the foundation of relapse prevention.

Note: We also have a wealth of experience with other addictions and compulsive behaviors, such as alcohol and drugs, eating disorders, self-harm, shopping, stealing, hoarding, etc.