Sex addiction or hypersexuality causes, symptoms and treatment

Sex addiction or hypersexuality is a disorder characterized by impulse and an urgent need to have sex. A person with sex addiction desperately seeks to have relationships, these are usually at risk and with a loss of control in sexual act. This problem can have different causes and should be treated before it generates problems in our intimate life.

Like other types of addiction, hypersexuality can generate tolerance and dependence. Therefore, a sex addicted person can end up without enjoying sexual relations and feeling deep discomfort when he is not intimidating. ¿You want to know more about the sex addiction, its causes, symptoms and treatment? Then keep reading what you will find next. In the following Psychology-online article, we will talk in detail about Sex addiction or hypersexuality.

1. What is sex addiction or hypersexuality?
2. Causes of sexual addictions
3. Hypersexuality: symptoms
4. Diagnostic criteria of hypersexuality
5. Treatment of sex addiction or hypersexuality

What is sex addiction or hypersexuality?

Also known as satiriasis or nymphomania, this sexual behavior disorder is characterized by an uncontrollable impulse to have sex. It is also defined as

A very curious characteristic of sex addiction is that pleasure during sexual relations It usually decreases (tolerance) and the feeling of discomfort increases in periods where relationships are not maintained (dependence).

This process can be observed in other addictions, such as marijuana or morphine addiction, where the pleasant effects of substances decrease and increase discomfort when this drug is not consumed.

¿There is really sex addiction?

For a long time this disorder has not been clinically recognized as such, being in most cases hidden by shame of those who suffered from it, and treated from society with frivolity. Known for many years under the names of nymphomania (uterine fury) in the case of women or satiriasis (of satyr) in the case of men, currently, it is encompassed Under the name of hypersexuality.

Although the DSM-V manual does not recognize this problem, WHO has decided to include the term hypersexuality and high sexual behavior in its international classification of diseases^[1]. So it is established as a risk disorder that must be treated.

Causes of sexual addictions

Although there is still no clear profile of sex addict, you can aim to affect approximately 6% of the population, being mostly 20 to 40 years, although it also affects women, in both cases No social class or education distinction.

As they pointed out Addiction experts (Echeburúa y Corral, 1999^[2]; Potenza, 2006^[3]) The causes of sex addiction are more linked to the relief of discomfort than to the search for sexual relationship itself. Sex addiction is also characterized in that behavior is not purely sexual (there is no activation of desire), but the intimate relationship is sought to try to "escape" an internal discomfort or reduce a state of anxiety.

Hypersexuality: main causes

Normally, this pathology is not isolated, but is usually a symptom, generated and maintained by other problems such as anxiety disorders, low self -esteem, childhood abuses, deficiencies in social skills, difficulties in controlling impulses and even bipolar disorder, alternating periods of much activity and lack of control in sexual behavior with others of relative calm, and even abstinence, related to the constant humor changes that these people usually suffer.

Hypersexuality: symptoms

We can ask ourselves when sexual behavior no matter how common it is to transfer The threshold of being considered normal To become a pathology. Well, here Rojas Marcos helps us with his definition to delimit him “any type of obsession that interferes in the person's ability to lead a normal life, and that harms him in his personal and labor relationships is a pathology”.

• We can expand the concept specifying that this concrete pathology begins to be such when Sex ceases to be used as a source of pleasure to become A way to evade ourselves Of other problems, we are unable to dominate the impulse, and carry it out not only does not produce satisfaction, but it makes us feel guilty and increase our discomfort, entering a spiral where to reduce that discomfort we fall back into the behavior that produced it.
• In reality, hypersexuality in its origin is comparable to any other types of dependencies, such as drugs, alcohol or game; We could talk about Addictive personalities With a tendency to develop addictions, replace each other, or even the combination of several at the same time, so the problem is more than basis, and it cannot be treated in isolation.
• Like any other dependence, it is related to Neurochemical changes that occur in our brain, in this case caused by sexual intercourse, continuously looking.

In this addiction, there is also a progressive escalation looking for increasingly intense stimuli, if the first step can be the fantasies, You soon go to the Compulsive masturbation and al Mass consumption of pornography, When this is not enough, disorderly and unusual sexual relations begin, in appointments or meetings of a single night both with unknown unknown anywhere and attending prostitution, and in many cases even leaving aside the protection against diseases of Sexual transmission.

Diagnostic criteria of hypersexuality

As we have said previously, the DSM-V diagnostic manual ended up declining the proposal to introduce sex addiction in its new edition. However, in that same incorporation proposal, the following diagnostic criteria were defined:

TO. For at least six months, recurring and intense sexual fantasies and pressing sexual desire, as well as sexual behaviors associated with four or more of the following five criteria:

1. Amount of excessive time invested in sexual fantasies and desires, as well as in the planning and realization of sexual behaviors.
2. Fantasies, desires and repeated sexual behaviors in response to dysphoric moods (P. eg., Anxiety, depression, boredom, irritability).
3. Fantasies, desires and repeated sexual behaviors in response to stressful vital situations.
4. Persistent but fruitless attempts to significantly control or reduce sexual fantasies, desires and behaviors.
5. Repeated involvement in sexual behaviors ignoring the physical, psychic or emotional risk that may assume for yourself or other people.

B. The frequency or intensity of sexual fantasies, desires and behaviors They cause discomfort clinically significant or social, labor or other important areas of the activity of the person.

C. Sexual fantasies, desires and behaviors They are not due to physiological effects direct of a substance (p. eg., a drug, a medicine) or manic episodes.

D. The subject is older than 18 years-old.

Note: These diagnostic criteria have been entirely extracted from the report "¿There is really sex addiction?"(Echeburúa, 2012, P.3)

Treatment of sex addiction or hypersexuality

It is important to re -highlight the Difference between a very active sex life More or less promiscuous that does not raise problems and where we are satisfied with ourselves, of the cases in which this activity dominates us, controls and entails negative feelings.

Normally, you go to consultation when personal problems with our partner and our environment have become unsustainable, or we have even had problems with the law due to some kind of sexual abuse, treatment with minors, voyage, public scandal etc.

¿How to treat sexual addictions?

Whether for male hypersexuality to treat female hypersexuality, the treatment must adjust to the case and not to the sex or gender of the person.

As always, the main thing is Admit and accept the problem, From there the treatment is usually based on the cognitive-behavioral therapy, combined in many cases with Drugs and sexological advice, And on a fundamental and specific basis in this addiction: an alcoholic can and should leave alcohol, just like a ludopath the game, however a bulimic cannot stop eating to correct addiction, nor a sex addict to dispense with it Completely, because it is a fundamental part of the human being, and this would be to border the problem without solving it, therefore it is about identifying that it triggers this compulsion and learn to control the impulse when it is not appropriate.

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Sex addiction or hypersexuality: causes, symptoms and treatment, We recommend that you enter our category of addictions.

1. Ministry of Health. (2010). International Diseases Classification.
2. Echeburúa, e. (1999). ¿Addictions ... No drugs? The new addictions (game, sex, food, purchases, work, internet). Bilbao: Bruwer's Def
3. Potenza, m. (2006). Should Addictive Disorders Include Non-Substance Related Conditions? Addiction, 101 (SUPPL. 1), 142-151.