Marriage & Family Therapist MFC 43846
Image courtesy Mateus Záccero
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) issued a statement that addictions are the result of biochemical changes in the brain. Whether the addictive behavior involves alcohol, drugs, gambling, or sex—there’s an altered brain chemistry at work.
According to Dr. Michael Miller, past president of ASAM who oversaw the development of this new addiction definition, “the disease is about brains, not drugs. It’s about underlying neurology, not outward actions.”
I’m very excited that Dr. Omar Minwalla is coming to the Bay Area in September (9/24 – 9/27) to train sex addiction professionals how to work from the Sex Addiction-Induced Trauma Model. I believe this training will produce a shift in how I work with my clients. (Plus, I totally want to geek-out with my peers about finer points of skillful sex addiction treatment!)
1. I had an extremely difficult partner case last year. My consultation with Dr. Minwalla produced a big shift in this client’s treatment and her resilience.
2. The SAI Trauma Model extends beyond “how to treat the partner.” I’d like to better understand how that all fits together clinically.
3. Dr. Minwalla’s work declared that partners’ reactions to discovery were symptoms of trauma. Why not learn directly from the man who pioneered this thinking?
4. Traditional sex-addiction treatment protocol sometimes bristles against my sensibilities and politics. I’d like to supplement my case conceptualization with other well-considered viewpoints.
[Read more…]
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…]
Image Courtesy Amy Hawkins
Take this quiz to determine whether your sexual and romantic behaviors involve the components of tolerance, escalation, and negative consequences we associate with “addiction.”
Dear Bay Area Colleagues,
I’ll be giving a lecture at Fort Mason in San Francisco. It’s sponsored by The Meadows treatment center for addiction.
This talk is 7pm on the first Wednesday in November. That’s right—the night after the first Tuesday in November. (I’m only talking for an hour or so. You can be home in time for Daily Show and Colbert.)
Hope to see you there!
