Is Sexual Addiction a Real Mental Illness?
Until today, there is a growing controversy about sexual addiction or hypersexuality. In fact, experts are still debating whether it should be considered an ‘addiction’ or a mental illness.
What is sexual addiction?
Sexual addiction is best described as a progressive intimacy disorder characterised by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. Just like other types of addiction, it poses negative consequences to the life of the person having it and to his or her relationship with others. According to the National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, sexual addiction refers to the act of “engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behaviour acted out despite increasing negative consequences to self and others”. For some people having this condition, the compulsive behaviour goes beyond excessive sexual interactions and masturbation, or extensive use of pornography materials. It could involve illegal activities such as voyeurism, exhibitionism, obscene phone calls, molestation, and even rape.
Being addicted to something means that not having it could result to undesirable symptoms. This is why many ‘sex addicts’ choose to just carry on with their condition than stop it. The problem with addiction is that the as it gets out of control, the more the person needs that something to feel satisfied.
The cause of sexual addiction is not yet fully established. But one US study revealed that 80 per cent of participants who were sex addicts have suffered emotional trauma or sexual abuse during their childhood.
New research challenges sexual addiction as a mental disorder
People who couldn’t control their sexual urges, engage frequently in sexual behaviour, and have suffered from consequences such as financial ruin or divorce as a result of their behaviour are diagnosed with sexual addiction. Some people who have been criminally charged for sex-related violations claim that they are not at fault for their actions, pointing to this specific mental disorder. But in a new study carried out by the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), researchers suggest that sexual addiction, may not, in fact, be a real disorder.
The study involved 52 volunteers (39 men and 13 women) ages ranging from 18 to 39 who reported having problems controlling their viewing of sexual images. The participants answered questionnaires that assess their sexual behaviours, desires and compulsions, and the possible negative cognitive and behavioural outcomes of these. All the participants had scores that are similar to those who are seeking help for sexual addiction. To test whether their symptoms are representative of an addiction, the researchers measured the brain responses of the subjects. According to the UCLA team, if it is addiction, the brain responses of the participants to visual sexual stimuli would be higher than expected.
The brain responses of the participants were viewed using electroencephalography (EEG) – a non-invasive technique that measures brain waves. In contrast to what they expect, the researchers found that the brain response of these people to sexual images was not related in any way to the severity of their hypersexuality. Instead it was tied only to their level of sexual desire.
“If you think sexual problems are an addiction, we would have expected to see an enhanced response maybe to those sexual images. If you think it’s a problem with impulsivity, we would have expected to see decreased responses to those sexual images. The fact that we didn’t see any of those relationships suggests that there’s not great support for looking at these sexual behaviours as an addiction,” explained senior author Nicole Prause, researcher in the department of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA. “If our study can be replicated, these findings would represent a major challenge to existing theories of a sex ‘addiction,” she said.
Nevertheless, the researchers admit that their findings are controversial and that more studies are needed before the notion about sexual addiction as a mental illness can be completely dismissed. And whether it is a mental illness or not, the fact remains that many people are suffering from the consequences of uncontrolled sexual behaviours. Thus, it is important that these individuals be given help, through professional intervention, so they could gain the control back to their life and prevent more serious problems.
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