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Sex addiction is a mental disorder say experts

The Tiger Woods scandal recently raised many questions regarding sexually obsessive behavior. Woods, it is believed, is getting treatment at a sex addiction clinic in America. Is sex then an addiction, like alcoholism gambling or drug abuse, that requires clinical treatment and rehabilitation?

Sexually addicted men are medically classed as having a personality disorder named satyriasis. Though rarer, it occurs in women too, termed as nymphomania. These people indulge in behavior similar to that in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), where they persist in actions that can be classed as aberrant as per conventional social modes.

The addiction takes root as the individuals starts increasingly relying on sex as a means to achieve a high. They indulge in sexual gratification to reduce the pain of loneliness and ward off emotions like fear, depression or anxiety.

Patrick Carnes who runs the sexual-addiction program at Pine Grove Behavioural Health and Addiction Services in Mississippi, where Woods is reportedly undergoing treatment. Defines sexual addiction as time spent on seeking sex and fantasizing about it. Spending over 14 hours weekly in sexual or quasi-sexual acts including surfing pornographic content on the internet and soliciting prostitutes, could indicate sexual addiction. It may be remembered that sexual addicts may pursue a range of sexual act depending on their orientation, ranging from from viewing pornography or masturbation to visiting prostitutes or following a fetish.

Sexual addiction can be treated, rehabilitation usually involves a program similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous where the affected person admits his or her addiction before supportive members. Therapy for sexual addiction may also include cognitive-behavioral therapy and the use of drugs to temporarily reduce the sexual urges. But for any treatment to work, the person concerned needs to be motivated and should want to give up the addiction.

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