Sexual Addiction - Symptoms and Proposed Diagnostic Criteria

Symptoms and Proposed Diagnostic Criteria

Irons and Schneider have noted that "Addictive sexual disorders that do not fit into standard DSM-IV categories can best be diagnosed using an adaptation of the DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence." Similarly, Lowinson and colleagues use the addiction model and define sexual addiction as a condition in which some form of sexual behaviour is employed in a pattern that is characterized at least by two key features: recurrent failure to control the behaviour and continuation of the behaviour despite harmful consequences. Patrick Carnes, another proponent of the addiction model of sexual addiction, argued that most professionals in the field agree with the World Health Organization's definition of addiction. Carnes has suggested four types of addiction in his writings: Chemical, Process, Feelings, and Compulsive Attachments. Carnes has categorized sex addiction as a process addiction.

Read more about this topic:  Sexual Addiction

Famous quotes containing the words symptoms and, symptoms, proposed and/or criteria:

    Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak.
    Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)

    Protest, evasion, merry distrust, and a delight in mockery are symptoms of health: everything unconditional belongs in pathology.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”
    Liz Smith (20th century)

    We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice—however much we might desire it.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)