Well does it? I have a great friend who 18 years ago was arrested for indecent exposure. He willingly knows what he did was wrong and what he needs to do from keeping it from happening again. The other day the stress became too much and he relapsed. He was arrest again for Indecent exposure. The first time his whole family walked out on him, he picked up the pieces and began to rebuild his life. He met a wonderful woman told her about all his ambitions, dreams and flaws. She accepted him for it all. This go around the wife has stayed and is working on finding out what to do to help their family move past this.
The American Psychiatric Association publishes and periodically updates the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a widely recognized compendium of acknowledged mental disorders and their diagnostic criteria. The most recent version of that manual, DSM-IV-TR, was published in 2000 and does not recognize sexual addiction as a diagnosis.
The DSM does, however, include a miscellaneous diagnosis called Sexual Disorders: Not Otherwise Specified, and includes as one of the examples of it: "distress about a pattern of repeated sexual relationships involving a succession of lovers who are experienced by the individual only as things to be used." Other examples include: compulsive fixation on an unattainable partner, compulsive masturbation, compulsive love relationships, and compulsive sexuality in a relationship.
Dr. Patrick J. Carnes is a nationally known speaker on addiction and recovery issues. He is author of Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction. Carnes says the same way that people can become addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling, they can become addicted to sex, anything from Internet sex to obsessive masturbation to affairs. New studies, like one at Vanderbilt University, are being conducted to determine if brains of sex addicts are somehow different, and if sex addiction is a true, measurable disorder (Manley). Yet despite growing interest in such research, there are still some who do not believe it is a true addiction. The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual, for example, does not list sex addiction as a disorder.
Manley, G, Koehler, J. (2001). Sexual behavior disorders: Proposed new classification in the DSM-V. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, 8:3-4, 253-265.
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Wow Eddie your blog site looks great and you have posted some enlightening information.
ReplyDeleteEddie you seem to be a very colorful person! I love your blog. On the sexual addiction subject, I do believe that it is an illness. I have known people in my lifetime who spend all of their spare time on the internet looking at porn. There are a lot of people obsessed with sex because of all the exposure that we have with todays technology. When I was young you were not allowed to see the things on tv that you see now.
ReplyDeleteAs usual I love to read your writing. You have an excellent skill there. Thanks.