Sex addiction treatment increasing

11-22-2010 National:

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Treatment of sex addiction is on the rise though it has yet to be officially acknowledged as a disorder and is not under government regulation, experts say.

Celebrity sex scandals have moved the controversial diagnosis, not recognized by the medical establishment, into the mainstream and led to the establishment of a growing number of for-profit treatment centers, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

When Alexandra Katehakis began as a sex addiction therapist in 1997, she says, she had only a handful of colleagues.

"There were five people in this field and we all knew each other," she said.

Now Katehakis, a licensed marriage and family therapist, runs the Center for Healthy Sex, "a full-blown organization" with a team of counselors, an intensive outpatient program, a range of therapy groups, a Web site and training for other therapists.

Celebrities have been the greatest evangelists for treatment, she says.

"My practice wouldn't exist without them," Katehakis says.

Just how many people are seeking treatment is unclear, since the rapid expansion of sex addiction programs is occurring without the government regulation that exists in drug and alcohol treatment, the Times reported.

Dr. Martin Kafka, a Boston-area psychiatrist, says there is serious disagreement in the scientific community over whether humans could be addicted to sex in the same way they could be to alcohol or drugs.

There is a lack of data demonstrating that sex addicts build up a tolerance over time or go through withdrawal if deprived of sex, two characteristics of substance addiction, he says.

"That's not to say that in the next decade that there won't be an empirical scientific backing for withdrawal and tolerance, but it's just not there now," Kafka says. ..Source.. by UPI.com