The lucrative, but dubious, business of treating sex addiction
By/ Irina Ivanova/ MoneyWatch/ October 31, 2017, 10:29 AM
Last Updated Oct 31, 2017 11:17 AM EDTHere are three things to know about sex addiction. First, a growing body of research suggests compulsive sexual behavior affects between 3 and 6 percent of the U.S. population. Second, celebrities who often blame the condition for sexual improprieties probably don't have it, therapists say. Third, it doesn't feature much in the medical literature, making it hard to track and leaving the growing network of sex addiction treatment centers in a medical gray area lacking the formal clinical protocols found with more standard diagnoses.
To the last point, there is debate over whether the condition qualifies as an addiction. No reference to sex addiction or compulsive sexual behavior appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), considered the definitive guide to mental health disorders. That makes diagnosing and treating it especially difficult—and makes it doubly challenging to tell legitimate practitioners from quacks.
Since it was first described in the 1980s, sex addiction has come to be defined as a condition where people lose control around sex or use it as a way to distance themselves from their lives, akin to gambling or drinking. Despite the growing consensus that sex addiction is an actual clinical disorder, however, there is still a debate within the medical community over whether it's real.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sexual-addiction-treatment-clinics-often-take-advantage/
