Sex Rehab: How Clinics like Pine Grove Work

Caitlin Duke - The calls for Tiger Woods to get help did not go unheeded. On Jan. 16, after weeks of sordid allegations regarding the star golfer's extramarital affairs, RadarOnline.com reported that Woods had enrolled in the Gentle Path program at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, in Hattiesburg, Miss., to be treated for sex addiction. Local television stations later confirmed the story. (See the top 10 apologies.)

Few people know what actually happens at sex rehab. While those who treat it say sex addiction is a disease like any other compulsion, the field is in its infancy: there is virtually no research on it, compared with the vast resources on drug or alcohol addiction. "You look at ways that your behavior has made your life unmanageable. That's really the question," says Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, who has been treated for sex addiction himself. "That often differentiates a sex addict from a non-sex addict."

Sex addiction is marked not simply by poor decision-making in the face of temptation, but also by a sense of powerlessness before one's own compulsive behavior. There are many types of sex addicts, including so-called sexual anorexics who avoid physical intimacy with their partner and seek it out in fantasies or with others. Despite the shortage of statistics, researchers agree that the vast majority of sex addicts — over 90% — are men. ...

Although Woods may be in a six-week program, his therapy is likely to be ongoing. Indeed, at Heart to Heart, clients are encouraged to come back for annual polygraphs to test their sobriety. According to Maureen Canning, a clinical consultant at Meadows Addiction Treatment Center in Arizona, simply working through the addiction could take two to five years of therapy, enhanced by 12-step programs for both partners; working through related trauma could take a lifetime. "Sex addiction is not about remaining abstinent for the rest of your life," says Denizet-Lewis. "It is about learning to have sex in a way that makes you happy again." ...

via Tiger Woods, Sex Rehab: How Clinics like Pine Grove Work - TIME.

This is relevant to my current interest in free will. Compulsions are cases where people become aware that they have no control over their actions. To change behavior, one must reprogram the subconscious.