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Clinical Care Consultants
Beata Jankiewicz, LCPC, CADC, ATR

Starting March 1, 2012
Thursdays at 7pm

As a leader in the treatment of sex, cybersex and romance addiction, Clinical Care Consultants is proud to announce its latest venture into the sexual addiction treatment field. Beginning on March 1st, 2012, Beata Jankiewicz, LCPC, CADC, ATR, in collaboration with Ross Rosenberg, M.Ed., LCPC, CADC, will be providing female sexual addiction group therapy / counseling. Ms. Jankiewicz  is a skilled, talented and certified addiction counselor and group therapist. Beata also has a certification in art therapy. She will be provide a much needed support and treatment service to sexually addicted and love addicted females.

According to Beata, “coming to a therapist takes a great deal of courage; usually summoned when facing painful problems, profound loss or life changes/transitions. Anxiety, depression, grief, addictions, anger and resentment, unexpected life challenges and unresolved traumas test our ability to cope and be successful in our lives. Without help, our problems manifest into harmful habits, toxic relationships, negative beliefs/thoughts and avoidant behaviors. A safe and effective therapy experience helps clients restore feelings of connection, support, hope and confidence. Through the counseling relationship, clients conquer feelings of hopelessness, disconnection, personal imbalance and being stuck.”

Some of Beata’s Specialties Include:

• Acculturation/multi-cultural issues
• Adjustment
• Anxiety
• Conflicts within personal relationships
• Depression
• DBT Psychotherapy
• Domestic violence
• Existential inquiries
• Grief/loss
• Interpersonal skill building
• Personal growth
• Life changes/transitions (illness, career, life phase, marriage/divorce, etc.)
• Spiritual crises
• Self-esteem and efficacy
• Self-injurious behaviors
• Substance abuse & other addictions
• Trauma (acute, post-traumatic)

The Emergence of Female Sex Addiction: Understanding Gender Differences  (click on title for the full article)
by Ross Rosenberg, M.Ed., LCPC, CADC
Clinical Care Consultants

Excerpts from the article:

Women are less likely than a man to seek help for her problem sexual behavior for a variety of reasons – mostly related to shame. Unfortunately, there has been little attention directed to female sex addiction. According to the foremost sexual addiction expert, Patrick Carnes, 3% of the total U.S. population is female sex addicts. In other words, of all American sex addicts, 37.5% are female. According to research 8 to 20% of those seeking sexual addiction treatment are women.

Our societal gender bias significantly affects the accurate statistical representation of female sex addiction. A society that regards male hyper-sexuality in positive terms has created a shameful backdrop and societal prejudice for women. Hypersexual men are commonly considered “virile” or “studs,” whereas hypersexual women are considered “sluts,” “whores” or “nymphomaniacs.” These unfair and egregiously incorrect conceptions of sex hyper-sexuality and addiction have marginalized and minimized the seriousness of female sex addiction.

There seems to be a mistaken assumption that sexual addiction is a “one size fits all” disorder. This could not be further from the truth. Female addiction is often misunderstood, incorrectly diagnosed and inappropriately and ineffectively treated. Although female and male addiction share many similarities, female addiction is distinctly different.

A Sexual Double Standard
Our culture/media encourages women to be sexually provocative and available, while holding them in contempt if they cross the boundary of society-determined rules concerning sexual decency. Male sex addicts are afforded greater tolerance and freedom than females. “The belief that women and men are held to different standards of sexual conduct is pervasive in contemporary American society. According to the sexual double standard, men are rewarded and praised for heterosexual sexual contacts, whereas women are derogated and stigmatized for similar behaviors.” (Kreager & Staff, 2009)

Sexual double standards date back to earliest recorded history. Biblical archeologists and religion historians point to frequent sexist and misogynist references in religious documents and art. The sexual double standard also can be traced back to the 13th century during the crusades when a knight required his lady to wear a chastity belt to ensure her sexual fidelity.
The most famous historical reference of sexual double standard is illustrated in Nathanial Hawthorne’s classic novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” which was written in 1850. The main character, Hester Prynne, was placed in prison with her infant daughter for conceiving a child through an adulterous affair. Hester struggled to redeem herself in a society that was harshly judgmental and punishing to females who defied the sexual mores of her time. Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” has become a symbol of modern society’s harmful, harsh and punishing sexual double standard.

Even today, the double standard continues to be inexorably entwined in our culture – so much so now that women themselves are guilty of discriminating against their own gender. A significant percentage of women judge highly sexually experienced women more negatively than men. It is still commonplace for women’s sexual histories to be used against them in workplace harassment cases or in cases of sexual assault. The double standard creates a dangerous backdrop for women who are considering getting help for their sexual addiction.

Love Addiction
Female love addicts compulsively seek total immersion in a relationship – real or imagined. The “lust” for an intoxicating relationship becomes a dramatic obsession that may be stronger and more compelling than the overwhelming desire for sex. Love addiction creates an illusion of power, control and even dominance. Love addicts compulsively seek exciting, exhilarating and mood-altering relationships, which by definition are unstable. They practice serial monogamy: seeking multiple relationships, which begin with intense passion but end relatively quickly. These unhealthy relationships become the organizing principle of the love addict’s life. According to a renowned expert on love addiction, Pia Mellody, it is dependent on, enmeshed with and compulsively focused on taking care of another person (1992). Like any addiction, the drug or process, in this case the relationship, persists despite the addict having no control over it and suffering obvious negative effects.

Female love addicts are habitually preoccupied with romance, intrigue or fantasy. They are driven by an insatiable desire for a romantic “fix,” which requires a steady stream of new and exciting short-term romantic monogamous relationships. They rely on their exhibitionistic and seductive “powers” to “feed” their addiction. They are entranced by the intoxicating “high” initiated at the point when they meet their love object. Beginning with hope, excitement and a huge desire, these relationships usually devolve into disinterest; disillusionment and conflict. The euphoric “fix” escalates and then maintains until the relationship does not deliver the drug-like euphoria anymore. Like with other addicts, female love addicts try, but never succeed in satisfying their insatiable and compulsive need of romantic euphoria – their drug of choice.

Signs of Love or Romance Addiction:
• Thinking you are in love despite just meeting (“love at first sight”)
• Valuing the time spent with love object over time and attention needed for self
• Relationships create feelings of safety, happiness and optimism
• Mistaking sexual or romantic intensity for healthy love
• Constantly “on the prowl” for a romantic partner
• Short, intense and conflict-based relationships
• Pattern of failed relationships
• Using sex, seduction and intrigue to “hook” or hold onto a partner
• Using romantic intensity to hide, cover or “medicate” emotional pain, conflict or problems
• Pattern of “dating” abusers, narcissists and addicts (emotionally unavailable, distant and
harmful)
• Flirting and/or having an affair while in a relationship
• Pattern of broken promises to stop the behavior/addiction
• Sacrificing time with friends or family to act out
• Avoiding relationships to control the addiction

Unlike sex addicts, love addicts tend to act out within a relationship. Often, they are unable to avoid or let go of toxic relationships, even if they are unhappy, depressed, lonely, neglected or in danger. Typically, love addicts are disinterested in the sexual aspect of the romance, including orgasm. The “pull” and the power of the “love” in love addiction almost always exceeds the addict’s sexual desires. It is not unusual for the female addict to report apathy or even dislike of sexual activity, including orgasm. Love addicts tend to use sex to manage their feelings or to control their partner – the co-addict. To the love addict, the sexual experience is a means to the end. According to the Love Addiction Anonymous (LAA) website, “unlike sex addicts, love addicts crave an emotional connection and will avoid, at any cost, separation, anxiety and loneliness.”

Many female love and relationship addicts report that they are addicted to the intoxicating, intense and all-consuming feelings experienced in the attraction phase of a relationship. This “rush” is described in Dorothy Tennov’s 1979 book, “Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love.” Tennov coined the term “limerence,” which she described as an involuntary state of mind that results from a romantic attraction to another person, combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated.

Symptoms of Limerence (Tennov, 1979):
• Intrusive thinking about the limerent object (‘LO’)
• Acute longing for reciprocation
• Mood fluctuations based on LO’s actions
• Can only feel it with one person at a time
• All-consuming obsession that the LO will relieve the pain
• Preoccupation (fear) with rejection
• Incapacitating and uncomfortable shyness in the beginning
• Intensification through adversity
• An aching `heart’ (in the chest) when there are doubts
• Buoyancy (“walking on air”) with reciprocation
• Intense obsessions demotivate the person from other responsibilities (friends, family, work)
• Emphasis is placed on positive attributes of the LO, while ignoring the negative

The Female Cybersex Addict
Cybersex is virtual sex where sexually explicit material is viewed or exchanged to evoke a sexual response. The cybersex addicts act out their sexual compulsions through the use of and involvement with the Internet. Cybersex requires vivid, visceral and sexually evocative sexual stimuli. Female cybersex addicts typically do not meet in person, but in “virtual” places, i.e., email, chat rooms, with video cams, prolonged email interactions and role-playing activities. While creating a safer experience, anonymity often enhances the sexual excitement for the female cybersex addict. Cybersex addicts usually act out together in “virtual” places through masturbatory activities. Female cybersex addicts are more prone to have phone contact or seek relationships through their activities (Schneider, 2011).

The Female Sex Addict
Female sex addicts can fit the stereotypical “male” pattern of sexual addiction. This is an addiction driven by a lustful and compulsive preoccupation with a sexual activity. Sex addicts typically engage in chronic masturbation, with or without pornography, and have anonymous sex with individuals who they either met online or “picked up” in a bar or other public place. To the female sex addict, the relationship is less important than the thrill of the sexual experience. While female sex addicts are less voyeuristic, they are more exhibitionistic. Typically, they are exotic dancers or strippers, prostitutes or women who sell sex or trade it for something desired.

Female sex addiction occurs with the same 11 behavioral forms of sexual addiction that Patrick Carnes outlined in his breakthrough book on sex addiction, “Out of the Shadows.” It should be noted that despite the commonalities, there are clear gender differences and gender behavior preferences.

1. Fantasy Sex – Sexually charged fantasies, relationships and situations
2. Seductive Role Sex- Seduction of partners
3. Anonymous Sex — High-risk sex with unknown persons
4. Paying for Sex – Purchasing of sexual services
5. Trading for Sex – Selling or bartering sex for power
6. Voyeuristic Sex – Visual arousal
7. Exhibitionistic Sex – Attracting attention to the body or sexual parts of the body
8. Intrusive Sex – Boundary violations without discovery
9. Pain Exchange – Being humiliated or hurt as a part of the sexual arousal
10. Object Sex – Masturbating with objects
11. Exploitive Sex — Exploitation of the vulnerable

Sexual Anorexia
The term “sexual anorexia” has been used to describe sexual aversion disorder (DSM code 302.79), a state in which the patient has a profound disgust and horror at anything sexual in themselves and others (P. Carnes, 1998). The title of Carnes’ 1997 book, “Sexual Anorexia: Overcoming Sexual Self-Hatred,” describes the sex or love addict’s psychological motivation for this disorder – contempt and self-hatred – often for their sex or love addiction.

Sexual anorexia is the inverse of sexual addiction. Sexually anorexic women are as compulsive with their aversion to sex as sex addicts are trying to have sexual experiences. Sexual anorexics suppress or repress their sexually addictive compulsions by denying their own sexuality, avoiding all sexual encounters, rebuking others for any and all sexual interest and/or vehemently condemning others for their sexual proclivities or desires. Sexual anorexia includes a binge/purge cycle, during which a woman may uncontrollably sexually act out for an extended period of time, and which may be followed by a sexual shutdown – avoiding all forms of sexual expression and activity.

Symptoms of Sexual Anorexia
• Persistent fear of intimacy, sexual contact, sexual pleasure, sexually transmitted diseases, etc.
• Preoccupation, to the point of obsession, with sexual matters, including the sexuality, sexual intentions and sexual behaviors of others, and their own sexual inadequacy.
• Negative, rigid or judgmental attitudes about sex, body appearance and sexual activity.
• Shame and self-loathing over sexual experiences.
• Self-destructive behavior in order to avoid, limit or stop sex.

Beata’s Psychology Today Profile
Beata’s Website

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