On November 14, a 20-year-old woman named Lanah Burkhardt appeared before the school board of the Conroe Independent School District in Texas. Burkhardt told the board that, when she was 11, she read a Scholastic book that introduced her to "a single kiss." According to Burkhardt, her exposure to this Scholastic book was directly responsible for her developing a debilitating addiction to pornography.
Reminder that “porn addiction” is not a thing. Sexual addiction is, porn addiction was invented by conservative/religious weirdos who think masturbation is “sinful.” Religions are especially glib about calling things “porn and addiction” without justification. They want you to think you’re sick, so they can provide you the “cure.”
Just because you enjoy looking at porn and/or masturbating regularly doesn’t mean you have a sexual addiction. If you have trouble maintaining employment or relationships because of your habits, you might, and you should talk it over with a secular licensed psychologist to make that determination and decide the best way to address it.
Edit: for anyone that wants to take umbrage at the fact that “sex addiction” isn’t in the latest DSM-V from 2013, here’s a 2019 review from psychology scholars: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=porn+addiction&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1701288070891&u=%23p%3DNjIPuUqk95kJ
And one from 2020: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=11094516847889822262&as_sdt=5,44&sciodt=0,44&hl=en#d=gs_qabs&t=1701288571080&u=%23p%3Dz2RDDmDZK2AJ
Hey, can you tell me where sex addiction is in the DSM-V? I can’t seem to find it as a diagnosis.
Not to be pedantic, but the DSM is not the final word on the existence of different disorders. It is a tool to help doctors do their jobs.
You won’t find Religious Trauma Syndrome in the DSM either, yet it is still recognized as a thing by a growing number of professionals. This example is still being discussed as to whether it should be its own category or if it should be rolled into CPTSD.
So I would demure to the consensus of practicing psychologists, not the DSM.
The diagnosis in DSM-V are the consensus of professionals. Diagnosis appear in it once there’s sufficient clinical evidence of the <>, and the members come to a consensus.
It is true that you won’t find e.g… scrupulosity in the DSM-V, but you will find OCD, and practitioners that deal with religious issues recognize that scrupulosity is a manifestation of OCD. Religious trauma would be more correctly seen as a cause of PTSD of CPTSD, rather than a distinct diagnosis of it’s own…
Simply being a practicing psychologist and acting as though a thing is real is not sufficient proof that a thing is real; after all, you’ll find plenty of therapists–almost all of them treating therapy as a religious exercise–the will talk about addiction to pornography and masturbation, when the literature indicates that it’s not a problem in the way that they act like it is. Therapists in Utah will quite often act as though any use of pornography is evidence of an addiction to pornography (see also: Jodi Hildebrandt). Some therapists still insist that being homosexual or transgender are mental disorders than can be cured.
I think it’s more accurate to say it’s a consensus, not the consensus. The consensus necessarily does and should change over time, and the DSM-V is a decade old.
According to you and maybe the DSM, not necessarily the consensus of psychologists. It’s not a decided issue whether it should be a diagnosis of its own or not.
Ultimately, maybe the woman in the article does have an addiction. Maybe she masturbates so much, she can’t function as an adult. I don’t know, but I know I’ve read a few studies, and they never used “porn addiction” (except to critique the notion), but they did use “sexual addiction.”
Here’s one, and the relevant quote: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=porn+addiction&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1701288070891&u=%23p%3DNjIPuUqk95kJ
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I don’t deny that there are issues or that these may be issues, but your source is a company offering to sell an alternative means of mental health support, not an institution of psychological research or a professional organization of psychological researchers.
The fact that they brought it up as some kind of gotcha kind of shows they don’t know what they’re talking about.
I’m no expert, either, but I’ve at least read books from credentialed psychologists who said the same thing as that article. One even called it a “rule of thumb,” a tool to help guide you in the right direction.
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