Affective Neuroscience and the Treatment of Sexual Addiction

Abstract

Affective neuroscience illuminates the neuropsychobiological impact of traumatic early childhood attachment patterns on the affective, cognitive, and behavioral development of sexual addicts and their partners. It also guides therapists to access patients' blunted right hemisphere through awareness of their bodily states and, thereby, to remediate patients' hobbled capacities for establishing genuine relationships, achieving insight, and regulating emotions independently. By enriching the current cognitive-behavioral, task-oriented treatment with attention to the neurobiological causes, and costs, of sexual addiction, we create a recovery protocol that helps patients progress beyond sexual sobriety to achieve previously unattainable interpersonal connection, self-reflection, and internally regulated affective states.