As a therapist specializing in sex and intimacy issues, I work with a lot of clients who have suffered (and sometimes committed) incest. Most of the time, they feel like they’re the only person who has ever experienced this. They feel deep shame, and they only reluctantly will discuss what happened. That is why a
Love addiction sounds like it might be a fun thing to have. But it isn’t. It’s a serious form of codependency where you place such a high value on a romantic partner (or more than one romantic partner) that your relationship with that person (or people) becomes all-consuming and the primary focus of your
For sex, porn, and love addicts, digital devices can be dangerous, providing instant and seemingly endless access to porn, hookup apps, social media flirtations, webcam encounters, prostitutes, virtual reality sex games, and more. For this reason, any person hoping to recover from sex, porn, and/or love addiction absolutely must install a “parental control”
If you remember the famous Tina Turner song, you remember the refrain: “What’s love but a second hand emotion.” That is the way it used to be. I loved you if my needs, thrills, cravings, or wants were being met. I didn’t see YOU, I saw my desires. I was loving the “if…then” experience, not
Early this year, David Fawcett, author of Lust, Men, and Meth: A Gay Man’s Guide to Sex and Recovery, and I conducted a seminar on the links between sex addiction and substance addiction – in particular methamphetamine abuse. David is an expert on meth addiction, especially in the gay community, and I am
In the last several of years, a small sub-faction of therapists, primarily those who label themselves “sexologists,” have publicly and vociferously argued that sex addiction is not a real disorder. Most recently this occurred with a wildly misinformed article published in The Therapist. (If you’re curious, you can find that article here.) Interestingly, these
Sadly, there are men and women who engage in same-gender sexual and romantic behaviors who think that means they must be sex, porn, or love addicted. Generally, these individuals are not happy with the fact that they are sexually and romantically interested in their own gender – usually because their family, culture, and/or religion has
Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S is a digital-age intimacy and relationships expert specializing in infidelity and addictions—in particular sex, porn, and love addiction. An internationally acknowledged clinician, he has served as a subject expert for multiple media outlets including The Oprah Winfrey Network, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, and CNN,
Gaslighting: To manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. Gaslighting is real, it is dangerous, and it is a very powerful tactic. I should know. I was preyed upon by a narcissist for four years. It was the most horrific, dreadful, frightening relationship I had ever been in. Most people who use this type
I have been through many a break up in my long life. I have been both the instigator and the one left behind. I have occasionally been part of a mutual decision to part ways. In my younger day’s most of the “dating” was done within the pack. We would pair up, be “the couple”,
