History behind Historic AASECT Position

History behind Historic AASECT Position December 5, 2016

addict-792693
Image found on bing.com – free to share and use page.

I was so pleased to see a historical account by Dr. Russell Stambaugh about the development of the AASECT Position on Sex Addiction that was just released last week. He is an esteemed colleague who has a long history in the association and was involved in the process. There are still disagreements within the AASECT membership as to whether or not therapists should be able to receive dual certification (in sex therapy and in sex addiction counseling training) since many see them as being at odds with one another (me included). However, I do agree with Russell that we want to welcome anyone who wants to become more educated in the sexological field because that will help the overall process of getting best-practice services in front of clients. And quite frankly, that was me at one point. I never went through the process of becoming a sex addiction therapist – but I had bought into many of the ideas coming from that perspective. Ideas that took me much time, education, supervision, mentoring and clinical experience with clients to get beyond.

I especially appreciate his explanations in regards of the importance of standing against any type of therapy practice that would intentionally or unintentionally elicit shame as part of its process.  “The position statement does confront the practice of using shame as a mechanism of social control for human sexuality generally, and specifically and directly opposes it as a therapeutic technique to attempt to change sexual behavior.  We made this statement confidently and assertively given the poor scientific track record of therapies relying on shaming techniques and the ubiquity of sexual shame in society generally which greatly risks over diagnosis of sex as the root cause underlying presenting complaints about a client’s sexual and intimate relations.”

To read Dr. Stambaugh’s account of developing the position in full please visit his blog: The AASECT Position Statement on Sex Addiction.


Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!