[Two Pronged] The sex addict

Jeremy Baer, Margarita Holmes

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A confessed sex addict writes, seeking group therapy

STIMULUS. How to get a grip - on your impulses, that is

Dr Margarita Holmes and Jeremy BaerRappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he enrolled in and subsequently gave workshops in work-life balance and gender sensitivity training. He has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years, as co-lecturer and occasionally as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives. Dr Holmes needs no further introduction.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer:

I am a sex addict. I have been looking for group therapy sessions to address my sexual addiction problem but I am having difficulties in finding the information online. 

But this is my problem and I know what’s best for me: to be with a group of like-minded people who are also suffering from sex addiction the way I am, suffering the way I am.  Do you know any that I can contact? I am also interested in group sessions for partners of sexual addicts. 

I am a straight male, 34 years old, unhappily married, with 2 kids, and a girlfriend for 2 years. I would be so thankful for your help. – Frankie

***

Dear Frankie,

Thank you for your message about sex addiction.

Opinion is deeply divided over this issue. At one end of the spectrum, there are those who believe that it is a widespread problem that deserves to be recognized and treated as a psychological illness. At the other, there are those who consider it a pseudo illness used unscrupulously to justify otherwise unjustifiable infidelities. And of course the spectrum contains many other opinions in between. 

There are many opinions on treatment as well. Exploring your childhood and sexual history is one way to begin, designed to understand the origin of the problem so as to be better guided towards the most effective treatment. However, you apparently consider yourself a better judge of your problem than any professional and have decided that chatting with other sex addicts is the solution to your “illness.” 

At first sight, self diagnosis and self treatment seem at odds with writing to advice columnists but of course the bottom line is that you are not actually seeking advice from us at all, just addresses, websites, and telephone numbers.

As for your interest in meeting fellow addicts and partners of fellow addicts, why would you want to meet such vulnerable people? Could it in fact be in order to exchange notes and find new sex partners?

Whatever the truth, I feel compelled to say that I am having a hard time understanding the grounds for considering you a sex addict. True, you have a mistress but telling us that only makes you a braggart, not an addict. You show us no sign of addiction to sex, only addiction to talking about it with so-called fellow sufferers, so I leave it to Dr Holmes to give you the benefit of her professional opinion.

All the best – Jeremy

 ***

Dearest Jeremy (and anyone else interested in how advice columns have changed since social media became more prevalent):

First, my asawa (husband) and partner in Two Pronged, thank you so, so much for keeping your part of the bargain – that is, answering a letter that comes to us as is, and, with whatever information is there, crafting a response that comes both from your head, but most of all your heart and, occasionally I must admit, your loins, to give the most helpful answer you can. Many times it is – THE most helpful answer anyone (trained, untrained, mental health professional or not) can give.   

Minsan nga nakakainis (in fact, sometimes it is so pissy-offy) since your answers come out much more wittily and funnily than mine do. 

And this pisses me off ever so slightly because it might give people the impression that you are more witty and funny than I, not realizing that to write as a “mere” layman and not a –ahem – trained professional gives you more freedom to shoot from the hip and go (merely) with your gut, and, well, write more funnily and wittily. There is another reason, of course, and that is you really do write more funnily and I thank my lucky stars that we are not partners on #AskMargie (teehee).

Second, by keeping your part of the bargain, you’ve given our column a chance to share how social media can change column writing as a genre. Before, this is all column writers had: a letter, and an answer or two answers, in case it had the “He said, She said” format which I like to think ours doesn’t. 

I like to think ours is more of “The Shrink and The Sage” of “The Financial Times.”  There the co-columnists answer not based on gender, race, or even class distinctions, but rather on their training – with one being a psychiatrist and the other a philosopher.  

At any rate, columnists worked with what they had, and, occasionally, after the article saw print, the letter writer might write once more to add more information or to clarify matters and/or disagree.  

However, with the use of social media and with letters coming in even through Facebook, a columnist can now correspond with the advice seeker (sometimes for clarification, added information, or something completely off the wall, like challenging him enough so he becomes more truthful with or about himself).  

This is a good thing for both Frankie and ourselves. You were spot on when writing that opinion is deeply divided on the issue of sexual addiction, so divided that even psychologists and other mental health professionals cannot agree whether such a phenomenon exists at all.

Your response to Frankie is an excellent start to moving the conversation along and I thank you for thus giving me the freedom for the following dialogue which took place over several days.

***

MG Holmes: Thank you very much for your letter Frankie.  Please, could you tell us the reasons you think you might be a sex addict?

FRANKIE: Because I have already had so many, and I look for it when I am bored; especially when I get into chatrooms or I start chatting with someone, many people get hurt.  

MGH:  What have you done so far to take control of your problem?

FRANKIE: I have tried to avoid the situation and to look for other things to distract me. But I cannot avoid it, especially when I am stressed. I also look for sex and look for multiple women to flirt with. Then I try to meet up with some on different days of the week. That is why I feel I need group therapy: So I can share my problems with others and learn about what is happening to them. I have looked for group therapy sessions for sex addicts all over the Net but I have not found one that exists in the Philippines. Do you know of any that I can go to for treatment? (TO BE CONTINUED)

– Rappler.com

Eye image from Shutterstock

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