Help me, I'm a sex / porn addict.....

When (predominantly but not always) men find their way to me for help stopping what they believe to be excessive use of porn or chatrooms or sex, they have typically spent a lot of time researching things online and going down the self help route first. They have also typically reached crisis point as a result of these behaviours, either their partner has found out, they have been arrested or are having issues at work. Up until this crisis point most have not sought any help either because they had no motivation to change or because they were feeling so ashamed that they were scared to reach out.

Starting therapy with me can often be a challenging experience. I don't tend to use the language of 12-step approaches and I try to draw the conversation away from "addiction" right from the start as I don't feel it's helpful for MOST people. For me, addiction language is closely tied with the medical / disease model which treats problems as largely being randomly occurring afflictions which need to be managed through strength of will and controlling your behaviours. I'm not keen on this way of thinking. It's not helpful and inevitably leads to a pattern of over-controlling behaviours, slip ups, feeling shit about yourself and slipping up again and again until you get back to a place where you over-control again. This doesn't feel healthy to me.

I work from the perspective that it is ok to be vulnerable. No, that it is both healthy and necessary to be vulnerable. That people develop a reliance on sex / porn / chatrooms as a strategy to help them to feel better about themselves, to avoid other difficult emotions or to sometimes self punish.

I strongly believe that sex is healthy and important and should be pleasurable and fun and that approaches that teach that masturbation is wrong are unhealthy and perpetuate shame and feeling shit.

So if you approach me for help on these areas don't expect an easy ride. We will explore your whole life in detail and think about what has happened in your life that led you to associating sex with self-soothing and why self-soothing in other ways hasn't been easy.

We will work through any traumatic experiences you may have experienced (sexual trauma, bullying, neglect, family trauma are common themes) and we will help you to work through feelings of shame. We will do this using EMDR and Compassion Focused Therapy.

We will use Schema Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy to help you learn how to self soothe in different ways.

We will look at strategies to help you identify and manage your emotions in different ways that help you to feel proud of yourself. We will help you to understand that emotions are useful and healthy not scary and dangerous.

We will focus on dismantling unhelpful narratives about sex and sexuality and enable you to have a healthy and shame free relationship with sex.

If appropriate / relevant we may also do some couples work to help your partner to understand and also to help them process any trauma / shame they may be experiencing.

So rather than having to over-control your emotions, be in a constant battle with yourself and live in fear of slipping up we will get you to a place where you understand yourself, accept yourself and your emotions, have worked though the difficult stuff and can move forward with a clear plan as to how you will do things differently.

Doesn't sound easy does it? But you're worth it.

Dr Nichola Marchant is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Sex Therapist working online. She has over 20years experience of working with people with sexual difficulties and those with a history of trauma. She integrates a variety of psychological therapies to ensure that you receive the best fit approach for your needs. Nichola's clients describe her as "approachable, authentic, compassionate and validating".

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