Sean Walsh on Fear and Faith in Recovery

Meadows CEO Sean Walsh recently sat down with Dan Griffin for a conversation on faith, spirituality, relationships, leadership, and recovery as part of Dan’s “Men in Recovery” video series.

In the interview, Sean talks about his childhood trauma, and how the biggest turning point in his sobriety was the third step (i.e. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.)

Sean and Dan also talk about how faith gives them permission to experience feelings like doubt, fear, and insecurity—feelings that men in our society are often discouraged from admitting that they have.

read more

Katehakis’ New Book on Sex Addiction Now Available

Alexandra Katehakis, Senior Fellow at Gentle Path at the Meadows, has written another book that is sure to become a touchstone for understanding sex addiction. It was just released today and is already number one on Amazon’s Hot New Releases in Medical Psychotherapy TA & NLP!

Dr. Patrick Carnes, founder and primary architect of Gentle Path at The Meadows says that Sex Addiction as Affect Dysregulation: A Neurobiologically Informed Holistic Treatment will “help addicts make sense out of the insanity in their secret and destructive lives,” adding, “Katehakis integrates how the brain, attachment, trauma, and family combine into a powerful addictive force. Plus, she teaches how to use therapy, and how therapists can become effective partners in healing. A great read for all people involved in the addiction epidemic―which means most of us.”
The book is available from Amazon in both Kindle and hardcover formats.

About The Book

Neuro-affective science is the study of the integrated development of the body, brain, and mind. Under its paradigm-shifting theoretical umbrella, we have learned that there are mechanisms that link the psychological and biological factors of mental disorders like addiction.
Substance and behavioral dependencies share identical neurobiological workings. This means that problematic repetitive behaviors are genuine addictions, and has helped increase or understanding of addiction as a chronic brain disorder.
Clinical experience strongly suggests that sex addiction (SA) treatment informed by affective neuroscience—Alexandra Katehakis’s specialty—is often profoundly transformative.
Katehakis's relational approach to treatment blends neurobiology with psychology to help her clients accomplish full recovery from sexual addiction. Her Psychobiological Approach to Sex Addiction Treatment (PASAT) joins therapist and patient through a relationally-based psychotherapy. It is a holistic, dyadic dance that calls on the body, brain, and mind of both.
Her latest book is written with clarity and compassion and integrates cutting-edge research, case studies, verbatim session records, and patient writings and art. She uncovers the ways in which neurophysiological, psychological, and cultural forces prime susceptible people for sex addiction, then details how her innovative treatment restores patients' the interpersonal, sexual, and spiritual aspects of their relationships and their desires.

More About Alexandra Katehakis

Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, is a Licensed Marriage, Family Therapist, certified sex addiction therapist and supervisor, certified sex therapist and supervisor, and Founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Healthy Sex in Los Angeles, California. She is the supervisory consultant to the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP), the certifying body for sex addiction therapists. She specializes in and has extensive experience in working with a full spectrum of sexuality from sexual addiction to problems of sexual desire and dysfunction for individuals and couples. She speaks to professional audiences on the subject of sex addiction and sexuality and teaches workshops on healthy sexuality in retreat settings.
She also serves as a Senior Fellow at Gentle Path at the Meadows, an inpatient sex addiction treatment center for men located in Wickenburg, Arizona. Her work has had a significant impact on the treatment program there and on the Sex Addiction Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) at The Meadows Outpatient Center. For more information about either program call 800-244-4949.

45 Days To Change Your Life?

Sexual addiction is best described as a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. Individuals who suffer from this disorder distance themselves from others through multiple sexual conquests, pornography, compulsive sexual behaviors, and other activities that create a wedge between them and their loved ones, their work, their friends, and anyone else who may find out who they truly are.

At its core, sex addiction is used as the primary or even exclusive method for coping with untreated trauma, unpleasant or disturbing feelings, ideas, conflicts and stresses, to the point where compulsive sex may become almost the only way the individual can relate to or connect with others. Those who suffer from sex addiction tend to organize their world around sex and live in fear that someone will get to know the “real” person inside them—the vulnerable, wounded, fearful person.

Only when a sex addict’s dysfunctional behaviors begin to negatively impact them and their loved ones are they willing to admit they need help combating their issues. Often these individuals will reach out to a professional for help in understanding what they are struggling with. Initially, they may seek out one of the many intensive treatment programs available in order to jump-start the recovery process. These individuals have usually broken through a major portion of the denial that accompanies sexual addiction by the time they seek help.

For sex addicts with a high motivation to change, a short-term, intensive program feeds into that imperative to change with an intensity that parallels the addiction. Treatment programs with a short length of stay—28-30 days—market themselves as a quick fix to develop the skills and tools needed to prevent relapse, or eliminate all sexual acting out behavior. This “quick fix” approach is very appealing to many sex addicts who are anxious to move on with their life. However, when you consider that it likely took years of acting out behaviors in addition to intimacy issues and early attachment problems to get to the breaking point, a short-term or outpatient treatment approach to recovery seems impossible.

Evidence shows that only time heals the scars and shame of sexual addiction. Additionally, a program offering a longer length of stay allows more time to work on underlying core issues and co-occurring disorders which many sexually compulsive individuals often struggle with.

Sexual Addiction Treatment

Sexual compulsivity is a treatable problem. Unlike drug or alcohol treatment, the goal of sexual addiction treatment is not lifelong abstinence, but rather a termination of compulsive, unhealthy sexual behavior. Overcoming this disorder involves a period of self-imposed abstinence, requiring a longer treatment process than a typical addiction program might offer.

Gentle Path at The Meadows believes that recovery from sex addiction is different for each patient, and for many, a more intensive level of treatment is needed. For these men, we offer a 45-day minimum length of stay treatment program designed to effectively address the sex addiction and uncover the underlying cause of the dysfunctional behavior. Our experience has shown, over and over again, that individuals who come to us for treatment enter the worst stage of their withdrawal from their sexual addictive behaviors and acting out patterns between the fourteenth and eighteenth day of sobriety. It is during this time that risk of relapse and the desire to return to old behaviors is the highest which inhibits the core treatment process. Our length of stay allows patients to work through the early stages of recovery and progress to meaningful treatment.

Gentle Path at The Meadows’ treatment program was designed specifically to allow adequate time for our patients to experience the full benefit of Dr. Patrick Carnes’ groundbreaking Thirty-Task model which has been empirically validated to be an effective form of treatment for sexually compulsive behavior. Dr. Carnes founded Gentle Path at The Meadows and personally sees each patient during their treatment; another benefit of our length of stay.

Recovery tools can be taught, but reinforcement comes with immersion which is why length of time in treatment usually determines the patient’s success. Individuals who attend, fully engage in, and complete a longer length of stay program, show marked improvement both during and after treatment. They also show an increased ability to bond with their families and the recovery community outside of treatment. The goal of longer-term programs is not to address only the behaviors, but to lead the patients to a change in lifestyle which creates long-term, successful recovery.

Additionally, Gentle Path at The Meadows was specifically designed for men only. We believe that treating sex addicts in a single gender environment allows them to fully engage in treatment. Whereas, in mixed gender programs, both male and female sex addicts may never be removed fully from the object of their desire long enough to fully enter sexual sobriety. This safe setting promotes bonding as patients start to develop the intimacy that has been missing in their lives.

Contact Us Today

Every journey begins with one step. To learn more about the Gentle Path at The Meadows or if you have an immediate need, please call 866-400-1101.

Men and the Illusion of Anger

Note: The following is a partial transcript of a Facebook Live Presentation Dan Griffin, MA, Senior Fellow at The Meadows, did on August 26, 2016. You can find the recorded video version on his Facebook page.

First and foremost, let me be very clear about what I mean by “the illusion of men’s anger,” because I can already hear some people saying, “The illusion of men’s anger?! My father’s anger, my mother’s anger, my husband’s, my partner’s anger is not an illusion, Dan! It’s not an illusion when the person is yelling at me, it’s not an illusion when the person is hitting me, it’s not an illusion when the person is acting

read more

Withholding Sex Is a Form of Psychological Abuse

Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT, CST is a Senior Fellow at Gentle Path at The Meadows. The following is an excerpt from her book “Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence.” You can find it at www.TheMeadowsBookstore.com or on www.Amazon.com.

Withholding love or sex is psychological abuse and results from early trauma. Withholding is altogether different from not having sex or not reciprocating love. People don’t have sex for many reasons. They might be traumatized. They might suffer from sexual dysfunction. They might be practicing self-care and setting appropriate boundaries for them. They might even be engaging in the political act of a sex strike in an effort to enact social change. There are equally many reasons why people might not reciprocate love. But to withhold sex or love as a punishment is a different matter altogether, and is always the result of learned emotional or mental abuse. Manipulating loved ones might appear to be a thought-out strategy, but it’s always compulsive.
Withholding exemplifies how deeply we hurt ourselves when we try to hurt others, and how deeply hurt so many of us have been. The phrase, “This hurts me more than it hurts you” (commonly uttered before corporeal punishment), is actually true. A caregiver doling out physical pain literally experiences the punishment along with the person they are hurting. Unfortunately s/he is also reinforcing a psychological pattern that brings psychic agony and isolation. Likewise, those who purposefully withhold love or sex certainly feel the pain of isolation from their actions.
Like any addiction or compulsion, such habitual behavior doesn’t just disappear. Because withholding is often masked in denial, it can be difficult to confront. Withholding is a very human quality; most of us at one time have given and received “the silent treatment.” Since most solutions to human troubles involve caring, attention, and love, to withhold means to deny solutions. Such withholding is probably a leading factor in many personal, social, and global conflicts.

Help for Sex Addiction and Intimacy Issues

If you’re a man who’s struggling with sexual compulsions or intimacy issues, the Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows offers 5-day workshops which may help you break free from self destructive behaviors and strengthen your relationship with your partner or spouse. The Men’s Sexual Recovery Workshop helps participants to address sexual obsessions and compulsions, broaden their views about sexuality, maintain positive relationships and avoid the harmful patterns of the past.
In A Man’s Way™ Retreat you learn how The Man Rules™ affect all your relationships with others and yourself. You will also look at how past experiences affect your ability to be present in your relationships and stand as a healthy man in the space you have created for your life.
And, for those who need a more comprehensive treatment experience for complex sexual addiction and intimacy issues, The Meadows Outpatient Center offers a Sex Addiction Intensive Outpatient Program, and Gentle Path at the Meadows offers a 45-day inpatient treatment program based on the work of world-renowned expert Dr. Patrick Carnes, who is also a Senior Fellow at The Meadows.
For more information on these programs and many others call The Meadows at 800-244-4949.

Patrick Carnes Awarded Fulbright for Sex Addiction Research

Congratulations to Patrick Carnes, PhD, Senior Fellow and clinical architect at Gentle Path at The Meadows. He has received the prestigious 2016-2017 Fulbright - Canada - Palix Foundation award in Brain Science with additional support from The American Foundation For Addiction Research (AFAR).

Dr. Carnes now joins the ranks of the many Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer Prize winners and other distinguished scholars who have received this award. He will also serve as a Distinguished Visiting Chair at the University of Alberta in 2017.
He will use his award to conduct a groundbreaking and unprecedented research study into the genetic factors associated with sexual addiction. More than 1,000 people (500 sex addicts and 500 non-addicts) from various centers across the U.S. and Canada will take part in the study. The study seeks to answer the following questions:

• What genes are linked to sexual addiction?
• How do these genes compare to the genes linked to alcoholism and drug addiction?
• Are there specific clusters of genes that predispose sexual addicts to behave in certain ways? In other words, can we predict whether an addict will become compulsive about adultery or pornography or voyeurism, etc.?
• What psychological disorders are linked to the different types of sexual addiction? For example, if a person is anti-social, is he more likely to compulsively pay for sex, engage in voyeurism, or pursue anonymous sex?

A full-genome genetic analysis of all participants will be conducted via saliva specimens. Advanced statistical techniques will be used to identify the genes that are linked to various types of sexual addiction, and to link genetic patterns to psychopathology and sexual addiction type.
This study could lead to many exciting developments that would vastly improve treatment and access to treatment for those who struggle with sex addiction. It could, for example:

• Lead to a screening tool for those with a sexual addiction, much like those available for alcoholism.
• Show definitively that sex addiction involves the same brain pathways as other addictions.
• Facilitate coverage of sex addiction and reimbursement or treatment by health insurance companies
• Reduce stigma and lead to more prompt and effective treatments for those who are struggling with the disorder.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Carnes and in supporting his efforts to lead us to a greater understanding of sex addiction and an improved ability to offer effective treatments for those whose lives have been shattered by the disorder.


 https://goo.gl/ILa4JH

The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Adult Sexuality

By Cassandra Rustvold, LMSW, MEd, Trauma Therapist at Gentle Path at the Meadows
Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has the potential to transform the trajectory of one’s life in a multitude of ways. While the effects of childhood sexual abuse are largely individualized and can manifest at different points throughout the lifespan, commonly reported symptoms and long-term effects include dissociation, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, relationship difficulties, and addictive or compulsive patterns of behavior (Aaron, 2012).

The sexual functioning and sexual identity in adolescence and adulthood is a particularly vulnerable factor in survivors. When a child suffers sexual abuse, sexual arousal becomes activated prematurely and can largely impact the survivor’s sense of autonomy over their body and sexual sense of self (Roller, Martsolf, Draucker & Ross, 2009).
It can also draw early connections in the neural networks of the child’s brain that associates sex with power, fear, shame, confusion, secrecy and/or pain. It is not difficult to imagine why those whose sexuality has been impacted are more vulnerable to struggles with intimate relationships and sexuality.
When attempting to reconcile one’s abuse, a particularly confusing component for survivors of CSA is the experience of pleasurable physiological responses to their abuse, in conjunction with their emotional and psychological distress. Children who have experienced these positive and pleasurable feelings often report feelings of shame and responsibility tied to their abuse and sexuality, and may experience an overall distrust of their bodily reactions (such as arousal) or physical dissociation (Hunter, 1990 & Long, Burnett & Thomas, 2006).
This fusion of shame, secrecy and pleasure has the potential to predispose one to sexual aversion, sexual anorexia, dysfunction, or compulsion; thereby deterring them from developing healthy sexual scripts in adulthood.

The Link Between Sexual Abuse and Sex Addiction

Three commonly experienced symptoms of childhood sexual abuse are also cornerstones of sexual addiction: compulsivity (the inability to control one’s behavior), shame, and despair.
In sex addiction, shame and despair act as a precursor to the beginning of future cycles, where the need to keep emotional pain at bay leads to mental preoccupation as an escape. The result of this addictive cycle often includes isolation, anxiety, alienation from loved ones, a breaking of one’s own value system, and secrecy; all things that often increase feelings of despair and a yearning to escape and repeat the cycle.
When an individual is struggling with intrusive thoughts of their sexual abuse or insidious negative self-talk as a result of their abuse, the lure of escape through addictive patterns of behavior is not only compelling but sometimes a means of psychological preservation.
In Dr. Patrick Carnes’ book The Betrayal Bond, eight trauma responses common among individuals who meet the criteria for sexual addiction are identified: trauma reactions, trauma pleasure, trauma blocking, trauma splitting, trauma abstinence, trauma shame, trauma repetition, and trauma bonding.
These patterns of behaviors are often unconscious attempts to reconcile, reframe, or repair the abuse that happened in youth. Unfortunately, they do not always accomplish this task and can result in perpetuated psychological and emotional damage.

The Role of Gender

Gender differences also appear to play a role in how these difficulties manifest in adulthood and whether or not someone will seek out help.
Even in 2016, boys and men are still provided with narrow cultural and familial messages about what it means to be a masculine. This narrative includes such things as devaluing emotional expression and vulnerability, while prioritizing promiscuity and maintaining control.
Research has found that male survivors are less likely to report or discuss their trauma and more likely to externalize their responses to childhood sexual abuse by engaging in compulsive sexual behaviors (Aaron, 2012). For a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse, these expectations are in large conflict with the need to shatter the secrecy of their trauma and/or obtain and maintain healthy sexual relationships; both of which require an open and honest dialogue.

Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse and Redefining Your Sexuality

For men struggling with childhood sexual abuse and sexual addiction, learning to abstain from problematic sexual behaviors that reinforce abusive sexual scripts is just as important as learning how to develop healthy intimate bonds and create a sexual identity that is affirming.
For someone attempting to face these complex issues the importance of having acceptance and unconditional, non-judgmental support cannot be understated. It is the abusive and negative interpersonal interactions that created the pain and it is the supportive and affirming ones that have the power to lift it.
At Gentle Path at The Meadows, we specialize in creating this space while offering a host of trauma-based services that are informed by the most current understanding of the nature of trauma and its impact on the person as a whole. Additionally, the therapeutic focus at Gentle Path includes not only learning to identify which components of one’s sexuality are subtracting from the quality of their life but also identifying or creating ones to enrich it.
Give us a call today at 800-244-4949.

References

Aaron, M. (2012). The pathways of problematic sexual behavior: a literature review of factors affecting adult sexual behavior in survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 19(3), p. 199-218.
Carnes, P. (1997). The Betrayal Bond. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Hunter, M. (1990). Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Long, L. L., Burnett, J. A., & Thomas, R. V. (2006). Sexuality counseling: An integrative approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
Roller, Martsolf, Draucker & Ross (2009). The sexuality of childhood sexual abuse survivors. International Journal of Sexual Health, 21, p. 49-60.