How we begin

The first session involves creating together a counselling agreement.

This is to help address and anxieties about how therapy works, answers questions and remove doubts.

The first session involves me listening to what brings you to therapy, the presenting problem/issue and what you wish to achieve.

 

 

How we begin for the partner of sexually addicted individual

Therapy, can involve working with partners of a person who has a sex addiction – as much has been written now about how to support the partner in their discovery of sex addiction (CLICK HERE TO VIEW IMPACT OF DISCOVERY).

The impact of discovery, whilst in no means an exhaustive list is to begin in understanding the impact on the partner. There will be many questions that would be and rightly feel the need to be answered. The work involved here is to help provide support and structure to recover. This way of working ensures the impact on you is not that of an affair. The impact of sex addiction goes deeper and far wider on memories and a relationship’s history. Going through your history and family structures may help as will working on genograms. The phrase, managing your own garden and not your partners will help to manage one’s own energies and what each in the relationship is responsible for. Though not easy the whole framework is not to label the partner as a co-addict. Co-addict was related from earlier understandings of sex addiction through applying an addiction template as with alcohol or drugs.

However, today this has thankfully being superseded by more research and a greater understanding towards the impact on the partner. On the resources page there a couple of books that may provide some helpful insights towards discovering cycles of reaction.