Sexual Abuse, Addiction & Dysfunction

Waterford Counselling Centre offers you a safe and non-threatening environment, facilitating access to supports, sensitivity, and diverse professional help for:

Sexual Abuse

In the aftermath of sexual abuse clients with psychosexual issues typically experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome, memory loss, grief, and dissociative behaviour. Therefore the pacing of work undertaken is crucial to reconcile the impact of abuse upon your life with your capacity to reposition the trauma in reconstructing perspectives about yourself, others, the world and your future. Waterford Counselling Centre can support you during this complex and difficult process.

Working together we can examine ways in which the patterns you have unintentionally and unknowingly created, may actually be perpetuating a vicious cycle of low self-esteem. Rather than serving their intended damage limitation purpose, your rigid, self-judgemental thought processes and defensive behaviours can exacerbate feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, hopelessness, anger and powerlessness.

Acknowledging the existence and legitimacy of these psychologically crippling emotions, therapy can be a vehicle to access and release you from their potentially damaging and indefinite stranglehold. Alternative thought, and response patterns can be utilised to develop new and truer coping strategies. Remember you are not your thoughts and the act of abuse or an assault does not define who you are or who you can be.

 

Sexual Addiction

Personal insights into the contemporary and often technological nature of sexual addiction become apparent through examining the compulsivity of an individual’s sexual behaviour within the sexual addiction cycle. In working with client’s sexual addictions I follow a 5 level integrative cbt approach (Stephens, 2012):

The behavioural activation level incorporates motivational interviewing which accommodates usage of the Wheel of Change Model. This model suggests that individuals may move backwards and forwards between the stages of change many times before achieving lasting change. It is only appropriate for me to work with a person at their current stage, not where they or I think they should be.

Change does not occur by taking an as the crow flies route and it is best viewed as a process and not an outcome. Eventually if you consistently maintain maintenance of alternative choices and rules for living your life that are in opposition to previous temptations, you can work with your emotions to understand your own behaviours and free yourself from the destruction of sex and/or porn addiction.

 

Sexual Dysfunction

Intimacy and disconnection problems arising from sexual addiction also transcend into the area of sexual dysfunction. Commonly disorders of arousal, desire and orgasm also benefit from external professional support. Collaborative and realistic goal setting may help you to work through psychosexual issues which have unknowingly hindered your body’s physical response capacities.

Waterford Counselling Centre offers a safe and non-threatening environment, integrating psychoeducational materials into explorations seeking to relate your symptoms to greater underlying issues. Occasionally this process may lead to specific referral elsewhere, but even if this is the case I will fully support you in this circumstance.

Seeking and accepting support is a strength and not a weakness so please feel free to contact me to take the next step.