Sex and love addiction

Sexual and love addiction has been defined as “a persistent and escalating pattern or patterns of sexual behaviours acted out despite increasingly negative consequences to self or others.”

Like any other addiction , sex and love addiction is a way of managing and containing profound emotional pain.The more an individual uses compulsive sexual behaviour to escape from reality, the more intolerable that reality is likely to become. A self-destructive cycle is set up, in which the need to escape increases in proportion to the chaos and shame of the individual’s life.

Certain behaviours reflect sexual addiction and are symptomatic of the problem, especially when they become out of control and repetitive.

These behaviours include:

·         Repeated affairs
·        The use of pornography
·         The use of the internet and cybersex
·         Multiple, often anonymous, partners
·         Frequenting shops, clubs and other establishments specialising in sex
·         Prostitution

The consequences of sexual compulsivity are as severe as those of any other addiction. They will impact on all areas of an individual’s life: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, legal and financial. The brain chemistry of sexual compulsivity is not unlike that of chemical dependence and thus follows the same illness pattern.

The Bayberry clinical team has both the professional and personal experience in the treatment of this very often progressive condition.

OUR TREATMENT APPROACH

The Bayberry Clinic treatment is immediate and effective, and is specialised to meet your individual needs. Our residential treatment programme is evidence based and takes place in a welcoming Therapeutic Community in a lovely house in rural Oxfordshire. Peer groups are small and our compassionate and highly specialised clinical staff create an atmosphere of democratic participation in the treatment programme.