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Sexual Addiction!

by @candesscampbell


“Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.” 
― Hunter S. Thompson

 

Sexual addiction! What is it? With the accessibility of stimulation through the Internet and mobile phones, there is a lot more exposure to the issue of sexual addiction. In my private practice as a mental health and addictions counselor, more and more clients are showing up who need help from this addiction. Actually it is usually the partner of the addict that is either reaching out for help or giving the addict an ultimatum – get help or else. Whether it be prostitution, pornography or chronic masturbation, it can wreak havoc in their lives and the lives of those they love.  In response to this, the treatment community has begun to use sexual addiction assessments along with alcohol and drug assessments.

Working as a chemical dependency counselor at a Federal prison camp in the mid-1990s, during the “war on drugs,” we began assessing for childhood sexual abuse and past sexual abuse. Nearly all of the female clients had been sexually abused. Some of the men said yes, but I suspect even with the promise of confidentially, they did not admit to this. Many who have been abused don’t remember, but issues show up later in their relationships.

Most of my clients who were diagnosed as sex addicts had been women and men who had a history of past sexual abuse and at some level attempted to find balance and healing, but instead found themselves in relationships where they became sexually addicted and often exploited. Some went on to be sex offenders. One example is a past client I counseled. He had been abused by his older brother and then went on to sexually abuse his nephew.

A leader in the field of Sexual Addition treatment is Douglas Weiss, PhD. This article summarizes the 6 Types of Sexual Addicts, a model he developed, which became the standard used to certify Sexual Recovery Therapists by the American Association for Sex Addiction Therapy.

 

Six Types of Sexual Addicts

1. Biological Sexual Addict

Weiss states this is the most common sex addict. Basically the behavior is “ring the bell, feed the dog, ring the bell, feed the dog” like Pavlov’s conditioning. What happens is during orgasm; the endorphins that are released create an attachment to what is happening at the time. So whether this is a real or imaged person, the chemical release in the brain creates a bond. These endorphins, “almost four times as strong as morphine,” are the highest chemical reward the brain can come by, legally. Therefore, “your brain literally glues to, hungers for, craves, and wants to repeat that activity again.”

Weiss states that the Biological Sex Addict probably represents less than 15% of all sexual addicts, and is the baseline of all the sexual addictions. Most also have components of the other five types.

In my own counseling practice, many of my female clients who have a history of sexual abuse fall for his type of addict. They become the sexual object for them.

2. Psychological Sexual Addict 

This person is often the one who has experienced emotional or physical abuse in his life. Due to the lack of love, touch, or security, as a child he sets up a fantasy life. This sense of neglect can carry on into adulthood and when his needs sare not met at home, he creates a fantasy world where he feels adored, worshiped, and desired. This is the man who fantasizes he is the best, the biggest, the greatest, etc. If he has been dominated in his life he may fantasize as being the one who is dominating.

In his psychological fantasy, he feels sexually powerful, loved and wanted. In his imagination, he doesn’t have to deal with real women who may say no, ask him for commitment, ask for help with the housework or ask for emotional intimacy. Once this fantasy is paired with the powerful chemical endorphins, he is hooked.

3. Spiritual Based Sexual Addict

Similar to the psychological sexual addict, this addict is looking for a connection. There is a strong desire for a spiritual connection. They look to find it within their sexual addiction. In this case, once they have a spiritual experience through a religious encounter, an experience with Jesus or another guide or Guru, the sexual addiction stops. “Their sexual addiction just plain stops, because that’s where the origin of the ache or the need was for the individual.” These people rarely get help within the clinical community.

4. Trauma Based Sexual Addict

The trauma based sexual addict is the client I have most experience with. In this case, he or she has experienced sexual trauma, most likely as a child or adolescent. These clients go on to mirror their trauma in their relationships. For example a young girl who was sexually abused by an older uncle may end up in relationship after relationship with older men. She may despise herself for this, but continue the behavior and recreate the shame. A woman who has been physically abused in conjunction with a sexual trauma may act out being abused in the sexual act in order to be satisfied and make attempt after attempt to find the right partner, shaming herself all the way. She becomes a sexual addict that is also the sexual object of another addict.

5. Intimacy Anorexic

Although a separate issue from sexual addiction, Weiss states intimacy anorexia affects around 29% of sex addicts. Generally, the anorexic behavior is related to “sex addiction, sexual trauma, neglect in the family and cross gender attachment disorder.” There also may be related to other co-occurring disorders. Weiss describes intimacy anorexia as when a “spouse intentionally withholds emotional, spiritual and sexual intimacy.” They may control through silence, anger, or withholding money. They blame their spouse, withhold love, tend to be critical, and are unwilling to talk about their feelings. This is a difficult situation for the addict because as they are working on their own recovery, whether it be abstaining from prostitutes, masturbation, or pornography, they also need to learn to move toward their spouse or partner and re-create a healthy relationship. They have to learn to feel and communicate their feelings.

 6. Mood Disorder

Sexual addicts who also have a mood disorder are another type of sex addict. Weiss shared about clients who were bipolar or had cyclothymic disorder and were medicating the imbalance neurologically through the ejaculation response. Until the medication was adjusted properly, they continued to relapse.

When you hear the term sexual addict, it may conjure up an image of someone being sexual, playful and having fun. The truth is the very opposite. Although the sexual thoughts and behavior may start that way, as in any addiction, the person loses control and their life spirals downward. Sexual addicts generally have low self-esteem and believe no one will love them as they are. They lack emotional intimacy and are continually pre-occupied with sex and sexual fantasies. They feel out of control and experience mood swings. They are filled with feelings of guilt and shame.

You may wonder, how sexual addiction is different from normal sexual behavior.

Weiss explains, “in a normal situation, a person is having sex inside a relationship context. He/she is gluing to the person, the eyes, and the soul of the person he/she is being sexual with.” This is different than having the object of sexual fulfillment being images that do not respond. Addiction creates lack of control, shame, and self-loathing and destroys relationships.

 As with all addictions, recovery is a one-day at a time process. Interventions and treatment planning is different for each specific person. Most often when one is treated for sexual addition, the chances of recovery are better when their spouse or partner is involved.

 In addition to treatment centers like the Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Dr. Weiss is the Executive Director, there are also 12 Step Programs such as Sex Addicts Anonymous. https://saa-recovery.org/ There are several other similar programs that provide help.

 The Six Types of Sexual Addicts information came from a written interview of Dr. Weiss by Barbara Alexander and my email communication with him.

 Douglas Weiss, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center and the author of The Final Freedom: Pioneering Sexual Addiction Recovery (Discovery Press, 2008).

 Heart to Heart Counseling Center 719-278-3708

heart2heart@xc.org.  Website www.sexaddict.com. 

This article was originally published In Live Encounters Magazine! 

5 Love Languages to better Communication

by @candesscampbell

Gary Chapman in his book The Five Love Languages teaches us to understand what makes us feel loved and what makes our loved ones feel loved. The five languages are 1) Words of Affirmation 2) Quality Time 3) Gifts 4) Acts of Service and 5) Physical Touch.

Have you ever had a friend who continually is asking for validation? A current or past love who is always touching you as you walk by, rubbing your shoulders, cuddling when you watch a movie? Someone who shops and is buying themselves gifts all the time? These may be clues to their love language.

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If your mother’s love language is quality time, getting her a gift certificate for massage would not excite her the way taking her to an off-Broadway play would.

If you have a friend whose love language is Acts of Service, making her a book of coupons for services such as babysitting or yard work may be more important to her than getting her a new scarf.

If your loved one’s first love language is physical touch, you may want to plan a quiet evening alone and give each other foot rubs with a sensual essential oil.

You can take an online test at http://fivelovelanguages.com/ to find out your own love language. Let your family and friends know what your love language is and in doing this you may be able to explore theirs as well.

You may find you score high on a few love languages. Let your loved ones know this and how they would express this to you.  My highest score is Acts of Service, although Quality Time and Physical Touch are close behind.  When I think of this I remember a boyfriend who built a fence around my yard and how loved I felt. More recently friends wrote reviews for my book and it was the greatest expression of love they could have given me. The photo is of my dear friend David Sandoval, M.D., an immunologist, who wrote an incredible review that is now on the back of my book 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.

The Heart Chakra

by @candesscampbell

“One love, one heart, one destiny.”    – Bob Marley 

Writing about Love yesterday made me think about the heart chakra. When I was in my own heart, imaging those I love, I realized it was not my heart at all, but really the heart chakra that I focused on.

Many people are not aware of all the incredible information that is stored in the chakras. If you have ever had an intuitive reading from me, you know the power of this experience.

The heart chakra is about the Power of Love. It relates to love, self-love, love of others, love of God (or your own word for the Divine,) affinity, loneliness, commitment, forgiveness, hope and trust.

On my website I have listed detailed information about each of the chakras. Take some time to journal about the fourth chakra and see how you can bring balance into your relationships and into your life.

EnergyMedicineDNA

Most of all though, practice focusing on your loved ones in your heart and experiencing the incredible feeling of love! When you do this you heal your heart and theirs!

Reduce your Stress and your Pain!

by @candesscampbell

Just a note that on November 5 only, when you buy 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine on Amazon.com, you have the opportunity to receive valuable gifts, worth hundreds of dollars, just by buying 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine. You will receive Powerful Personal Enrichment videos with Dr. Brian Weiss, Money Mojo Now videos with Mary Shakun, Universal Principles of Thriving with Dr. Kim, Pain Relief with Sound Healing ebook from Charles Lightwalker, tele-courses, coaching sessions and so much more! (just email me your receipt!)

Many people think about stress as being specific to negative happenings in their lives, but stress actually occurs from both negative and positive situations. In fact, your energy system picks up a great amount of stress without you even being aware. What’s wonderful, however, is that your body is amazing at moving back into balance.

You may remember a time when something happened suddenly and unexpectedly, and you immediately went into a heightened state of awareness. Your body is set up with a protective mechanism toward “fight” or “flight.” This reaction creates an outpouring of adrenaline and other hormones into your blood stream, which produces a number of protective changes in your body. This flood provides you with the energy and strength to either fight or flee from the situation. Here, your heart rate increases, allowing more blood flow to your muscles, brain, and heart. Your breathing also increases to a faster pace in order to take in more oxygen, and your muscles tense in preparation for action. You become mentally alert, and your senses become more aware so that you can assess the situation and act quickly. In addition to this, your blood sugar, fats, and cholesterol increase for extra energy. There is a rise in your platelets and blood clotting ability, which prevents hemorrhaging in case of injury.

Most of the time though, you don’t have this fight-or-flight response. Instead, there is a steady stream of stressors that increase and decrease as the day goes on. You become accustomed to the stress and then see it as normal, and all the while it is taking a toll on your body. You may find you compare yourself to others and then think that you don’t have it so bad, or that your stress is worse than others, which creates more stress.

If this makes you wonder about your own stress level I have provided you with the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. It is a standard test developed initially in 1967 by two psychiatrists, Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe. This test was published as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Using Life Change Units (LCU), they were able to correlate the relationship between stress and illness in participants. In 1970, Rahe implemented another test, which assessed the reliability of the stress scale as a predictor of illness. Take a moment to evaluate your stress level with this Life Event Stress scale.

http://candesscampbell.com/books/self-help-toolbox

Having taken the stress test, you may be surprised by the results. If you find you do not have many of the stressors listed but still struggle with stress, understand that although we share a human experience, we all experience life differently.

In addition to understanding what stresses you, you may also experience physical symptoms of stress such as increased heart rate, pounding heart, elevated blood pressure, sweaty palms, headache, trembling, twitching, stuttering, sleep disturbances, fatigue, shallow breathing, dry mouth, cold hands, itching, being easily startled, chronic pain, susceptibility to illness, and tightness in the chest, neck, jaw, and back muscles.

Emotional signs and symptoms of stress include irritability, angry outbursts, hostility, depression, jealousy, restlessness, withdrawal, anxiousness, diminished initiative, hyper-vigilance, feeling that things are not real, lack of interest in things you used to enjoy, crying outbursts, being critical of others, self-deprecation, nightmares, impatience, lack of hope, narrowed focus, obsessive rumination, lack of self-esteem, insomnia, and either overeating or loss of appetite.

In addition to taking the Holmes and Rahe Stress test mentioned earlier, before you make changes, figure out on a scale from 1–10 how stressed you feel in your life. Do this with 1 being little or no stress, 5 being a medium level of stress (or being stressed about half the time during the week), and 10 being a high level of stress (or being stressed daily). Make a note of your stress score in your journal so you can test yourself again after using some of the tools outlined for you.

Ways in which you can reduce stress:

  1. Compartmentalize your life—focus on one thing at a time.
  2. Set realistic goals and break projects down into manageable pieces.
  3. Know your limits and prioritize.
  4. Eat healthy and avoid sugary snacks.
  5. Decrease or alleviate caffeine altogether.
  6. Move your body.
  7. Get enough sleep—7 or 8 hours a night is recommended.
  8. Decrease or alleviate alcohol altogether.
  9. Get massage or receive healthy touch.
  10. Become a non-smoker.
  11. Practice relaxation.
  12. Share with friends.
  13. Journal.
  14. Create play in your life!
  15. Listen to your body and your emotions.

This is just a beginning for you to start reducing stress in your life. Often when you change your behaviors, you do not notice a difference at first. You may want to put this list on the refrigerator or a mirror and practice for six months to see how your life changes. Then assess your stress level on a scale from 1–10 again and see how much you have improved.

You know your body more than anyone else. Taking an inventory of yourself can be life changing!

A short video that teaches you to ground your energy and relax is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWajD6Upuiw. You can do this daily to teach your body to relax.

Click here to find more information about 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.

Previously published in Live Encounters Magazine June 2013

How to Choose a Psychic Healer

by @candesscampbell

Where ever you look today you see the words psychic, intuitive and healer.  For those of us who have been providing these services for many years, it is so exciting that, once alienated and thought “weird,” we are now moving into the mainstream.

The downside of this though, is anyone can say they are a psychic, an intuitive and a healer. This whole subject is double edged for me. On one hand, I believe and teach that we are all intuitive and all have healing ability. The other side though, is that just because we are intuitive and have healing ability does not make us a psychic, an intuitive or a healer.

It is rare to find someone who immediately has these abilities or has the abilities without training and practice.

Kyoto- If I can lift the rock my wish comes true!

Today we have so many tools like tarot cards, medicine cards and such, and these are fun to use to get bits and pieces of information. To be a professional card reader though, to be in integrity and to charge for these readings, it can take years of practice.

[clickToTweet tweet=”How to Choose a Psychic Healer!” quote=”Integrity, Compassion and Healthy Boundaries are important traits of a Psychic Healer. “]

So how do you know who to trust and who is just putting out a self- proclaimed shield without backing?  You have a right to know about the person you hire and who you let work in your energy field or read you psychically. If they don’t charge you, be even more careful because those of us who are highly skilled, usually charge.

Here are some guidelines.

  1. Find out where they received their training. What school did they attend, what classes did they take, and are they certified? Do they have supervision?  Most who are legitimate in these fields will be able to tell you, and proudly. Now, many of the spiritual healing and intuitive modalities are not accredited like medical schools or counseling programs, but the practitioner should be able to tell you where they learned their skills, what programs they took, or, with Reiki, the lineage of their teachers.
  2. Have them share with you how long they have been doing this work. Their response to the question may be more important than how long they practiced. If they are not clear about this, that may be a red flag.
  3. Make sure you work with someone who can be open and honest with you about what they do. If they cannot explain what they do, you may want to go to someone who has a definite skill and can back it up.
  4. Find out if they get continuing education in their practice. The value of seeing professionals such as licensed counselors and physicians is they are required to have continuing education and stay up on what is happening in their field. See if your practitioner is doing the same. This includes a clear understanding of setting boundaries (their own and with clients) and the ethics of working with clients.

Whether you want to hire a psychic, an intuitive or a healer or you are a psychic, intuitive, or healer, it is important to know that not all people are trained and skilled appropriately. If you don’t trust the person you are seeing, find someone else. If you are uncertain about your own skills, get more training. You will feel better about yourself and attract more clients.

Here are a couple examples of why you want to make sure you are seeing the right person.

  1. You want to receive a service from someone who understands more than you do about working with people. For instance, let’s say you are a person who believes everything you hear. You go to a psychic and she says you will lose your job in 3 months. You return to work and begin (subconsciously) to create the situation where you end up losing your job.

Now, if you are what we call highly programmable (believe everything you hear from the psychic) rather than discerning the information through your own filter, this can happen. A skilled psychic would be able to see this about you and speak with you in a way that you would receive the information you needed, but not leave her office and sabotage your job.  An untrained psychic or intuitive may not understand programmability and may send you on your way to self-destruct.

  1. It is important to see someone who does the emotional, mental, and spiritual work themselves. If not, they may have the tendency to “project” onto you some of what they are working on. An example from my own life is, when I was ill several years ago, unknowingly struggling with adrenal fatigue, I went to a local woman for a reading. She had two decks of cards. One had a border and then a cut out for another card and they together made one picture.

The outer border I picked was a picture of a barn. The inner picture was of a shovel. I was really ill, having no energy and could barely think at the time. She asked me to tell her what it meant. I couldn’t figure it out. She was impatient with me and said “it means your are supposed to pick up the shovel and get to work!” Well, not long afterward I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue (which I write about in my book 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.) Shortly after that all I could do was rest. I could manage one client a day and that was it. Hindsight is, the card meant to put the shovel down and stop working, but the judgment I received from her was I was not doing enough. I also had felt I didn’t do enough which is why I had driven myself to such a physical state.

Had I known how to pick the right person to help me, the situation would have been much different. What happens though, is when we are at the bottom and reaching out for help, sometimes we just reach out anywhere. As you read this now, hoping your life is healthy and balanced, research the people you would choose for your psychic and your healer.  Then when you need them, you will have confidence in your choice!

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