You just found out that you have a sex addiction. Now, you’re trying to make sense of it all. What does this mean? How do you categorize it? Is addiction a mental illness?
Sex addiction is a mental illness because, like other addictions, it alters your brain chemistry, so you can’t control it, even if you try. And, like other addictions, if you don’t figure out how to control the issue, it can ruin your life.Recovering from sexual addiction is challenging, but it is possible. Sex addiction treatment from Begin Again Institute will help you better understand the addiction and help launch you into recovery.
What Defines a Mental Illness?
A mental illness is a health condition that impacts a person’s mind and body, altering their emotions, thinking, and behavior.
Symptoms of mental illness vary, depending on the person and the condition. Overall, it makes it difficult for a person to function in their daily lives, including at school, at work, in relationships, and in social situations. This difficulty is because mental illness impacts how a person thinks, communicates, learns, behaves, and feels.
Mental illness doesn’t discriminate. It can impact anyone, regardless of age, income, social status, orientation, or other factors.
The good news is that mental health issues can be treated, or the symptoms controlled, to help the person live a happy, productive life despite their diagnosis.
Understanding the Intersection of Addiction and Mental Health
Mental health concerns and addictions often go hand in hand. Decades of research show that people with mental illness are more likely to experience addiction and vice versa.
There are two leading theories about why these two types of mental health challenges interconnect.
Self-Medication or Adverse Self-Coping
The first of these two theories is known as the self-medication hypothesis. In this model, people turn to addictive behaviors — such as sex — to cope with the symptoms of an underlying mental illness.
For example, a person living with a depressive disorder may turn to sex to help them feel less sad and lonely.
Sex causes a drastic spike in dopamine, the feel-good chemical in the brain. This good feeling can temporarily relieve the symptoms of depression.
But, while self-medication may work for a short time, it doesn’t address the underlying problem. In fact, it can make it worse because the person is avoiding dealing with the real issues.
At the same time, adverse coping can lead to the development of addiction, which people often don’t recognize until the habit is out of their control and they’re unable to stop it.
Addiction-Induced Mental Illness
The other pathway is when addictive behavior results in a mental health diagnosis.
Having an addiction can cause a person to experience anxiety, depression, trauma, or any other number of mental health diagnoses.
For example, if you have a sex addiction and cheat on your spouse, the extreme guilt and shame from your behavior may result in self-loathing that causes depression. Ironically, you may then try to use sex to cope with those depressive symptoms, feeding the addiction and creating a cycle.
Is Sex Addiction a Mental Illness?
If a mental illness is defined as a health condition that impacts a person’s mind and body, altering their emotions, thinking, and behavior, then sex addiction certainly qualifies.
Sex addiction is also known as hypersexuality disorder, which is compulsive behavior related to sexual experiences like sex, masturbation, or pornography viewing.
Symptoms of hypersexuality disorder include:
- Repeatedly engaging in sexual behavior without regard for physical or emotional harm to yourself or others.
- Excessive preoccupation with and time consumed by, planning for, or engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors.
- Engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors in response to your moods – such as anxiousness, boredom, frustration, or depression.
- Excessively and repeatedly engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors in response to life events or adverse feelings.
- Unsuccessfully attempting to control or reduce your sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors.
Like any other addiction, sex addiction requires education, treatment, and professional mental health assistance to recover fully.
“Sex addiction carries all the clinical hallmark features of other addictions like those to substances, eating, and gambling,” said Ed Tilton, President at Begin Again Institute.
These “hallmark features” include what’s known as “the four Cs” of addiction.
The 4 Cs of addiction are:
- Compulsion. Feeling like you must do something, as if you’ve lost your free will and can’t control yourself.
- Loss of Control. Engaging in behaviors more frequently and for longer than intended.
- Craving. You still want to engage in a behavior, despite making promises not to, feeling shame or guilt, or other negative consequences of the action.
- Consequences. Engaging in behaviors, despite effects such as physical harm, relationship damage, or financial ruin.
The symptoms of sex addiction and its outcomes fulfill the four Cs. In short, it’s just as legitimate an addiction as that to alcohol or drugs.
Neurological Insights: How Addiction Affects the Brain
Addiction affects key parts of the brain. Specifically, it impacts the brain’s reward network, which helps people learn and understand what feels good.
When you do something pleasurable, it triggers your brain’s reward system, which releases dopamine. If you release the “feel good chemical” too frequently, your dopamine receptors start to shut down. Then, you have to do more of what initially made you feel good or do it in a more extreme way to get the same feeling. This escalation is how addiction occurs.
Pretty soon, you don’t want to do anything else. You lose interest in hobbies and activities outside of sex and spend most of your time thinking about and planning your next sexual encounter. You may even start having sex with riskier partners, in places where you may be discovered, or in more extreme ways.
Once you receive treatment for sex addiction, your brain can recover, and your dopamine receptors can regulate again. But, until that time, the addiction will continue escalating.
The Diagnostic Criteria for Mental Illness: The Role of the DSM-5 in Classifying Sex Addiction
Some mental health practitioners question whether sex addiction is “real” because it’s not in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) — the official diagnostic manual of the profession. But not having an officially listed diagnostic code doesn’t mean a disorder doesn’t exist or people don’t experience the problem.
“While there has been a lot of speculation and jokes about sex addiction being ‘real,’ we need to look at it from the lens of treating a mental disorder, trauma, or addiction. That’s the only way for us to help those who are suffering,” Ed said.
Mental health professionals suggested that hypersexuality be added to the DSM’s fifth edition. However, the APA review board decided there wasn’t enough research to support a new diagnosis.
There’s still growing support for adding “behavioral addictions” into the DSM. Until that time, therapists can diagnose people with sex addictions with specific “paraphilic disorders.”
The problem with this diagnosis is that it doesn’t accurately describe sex addiction because it suggests that the person is compulsively aroused by something other than another person.
Instead, therapists typically code it as a behavioral or impulse control disorder.
Sexual Addiction Recovery Options
If you have a sex addiction, you’ll need professional help to recover and heal. Healing starts with choosing the right type of treatment program.
Begin Again Institute offers multiple treatment options, including our 14-Day Men’s Intensive program. This specialized intensive uncovers and addresses the addiction’s root cause, helping you better understand where the behaviors originated and launching you on the path to recovery.
Therapeutic options in the intensive include:
- Trauma-Focused Therapy. Start healing at the source of your addiction by discovering and addressing the trauma that resulted in your addiction.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This type of talk therapy helps you learn new coping techniques and better decision-making practices.
- Group Therapy. In a small group, you can see that you aren’t alone and feel supported by others who understand your feelings.
If you’d like a faith-based approach to sex addiction treatment, our 14-Day Boulder Recovery Christian Men’s Intensive offers the same therapeutic approaches as the traditional intensive with a focus on helping you restore your faith.
And while you participate in treatment, your partner can work toward their own healing. Our Partner Support Program is a specialized virtual support group exclusively for those whose partners are undergoing treatment in one of our 14-day intensives.
Regardless of what led you to this point, Begin Again Institute can help you move into recovery.
Advancements in Treatment: Integrating Mental Health and Addiction Recovery
Sex addiction is painfully real to the people who experience it and their loved ones, even if it doesn’t have a formal diagnostic code for insurance billing purposes. If you’re experiencing sex addiction, it’s time to see how sex rehab can work for you.
At Begin Again Institute, we’re equipped to help you overcome sex addiction.
The question shouldn’t be, “Is addiction a mental illness?” Instead, it should be whether your sexual behavior is hurting your quality of life, relationships, and ability to function.
At BAI, we know that this is the true experience for many people — and that we have the expertise to help.
Contact Begin Again Institute today if you’re ready to recover from sexual addiction.
With over 15 years of experience in the recovery and personal growth field, Jon is a dedicated therapist who specializes in working with men suffering from depression, anxiety, trauma, and addiction. Through a combination of Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and experiential therapies, Jon helps individuals address the root causes of emotional challenges, leading to deeper healing and personal growth.
In addition to holding a Master’s degree in Psychology from Naropa University in 2010, Jon also earned a Master in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1996. Outside of work, Jon enjoys spending time with his 10-year-old son and staying active through hiking, swimming, yoga, biking, pickleball, and tennis.
