Jenner Bishop

Marriage & Family Therapist MFC 43846

Nature, Nurture or Both?

familyhistorysexaddictIOP_225pxlsWe talk a lot in treatment about compulsive behaviors functioning as self-soothing mechanisms. In the 5-Day Intensive Outpatient Program, we often construct a genogram of each participant’s family history. Invariably, someone will say “Yeah, whatever. I don’t want to waste time blaming my parents for my being a sex addict.”

It’s always tough at this juncture. As clinicians, we want clients to accept responsibility for choices made. Yet we also want to present some explanations (not justifications and not excuses!) for how these coping mechanisms might have come into being: What emotionally dysregulating material is present, and how does sexually compulsive behavior obliterate those intolerable feelings?

Recent findings in epigenetics are fascinating to those of us working in the addiction field. [Read more…]

AB1775: Affected Client Speaks Out

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Here’s an example of why AB1775 is a terrible and ill-conceived law. If you’re not worried about the erosion of client confidentiality, then you’re not paying attention.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am the client directly affected by AB1775. I’m terrified to write this letter, but hope maybe I can express the grave mistake and consequences of AB1775.

I was born in the early 1980s and hit my pre-teen years when the Internet was becoming a sensation. Before the internet, I discovered porn like most others at that time: through magazines hidden under my father’s bed and garbled cable-tv channels. For whatever reason—biological, environmental or both—I developed a compulsive need to view pornography as a means of soothing my unpleasant feelings.

Around 11 or 12 years old, when the new computer came home, it took almost no time for my brother and I to discover Internet chat rooms where people exchanged pornography. [Read more…]