Parents: 5 Signs Often Present in Teens With Sex Addiction

For many teens, increasing sexual desires are a part of life. They begin dating, explore their bodies and for some, encounter their first sexual experience. This is all a very normal part of growing up. But, when does normal sexual desires turn into sexual addiction? When does it become out of control?

Cause of sex addiction

Sex addiction like any other form of addiction encompasses all the aspects of people like physical, emotional or biological. The cause of sex addiction include:

• Genes: Genes of predisposition, impulsivity, sensation seeking and emotional dysregulation can be pass on from parents to the child. One can also have many traits that are associated with sexual addictions such as depression and anxiety.
• Hormones: Some people who have a high level of estrogen or testosterone have a great impact on libido. If someone has a very high level of these hormones, they may likely to engage more in the sexual activities, and it can go out of control in many times.
• Environmental factors: Early environment exposure like the exposure to sexual content and sexual abuse can cause teen sex addiction. These contribute significantly to sexual urges at an early stage and develops further to be devastating.
• Mental health: There are many cases of health problems that cause sex addiction. These include depression, anxiety, and personality disorders and poor impulse control. Those people who have Bipolar Disorder are likely to engage most in risky or excessive social behaviors.
• Other social causes include rejection, social isolation and also social learning. Social learning is where one has friends who engage in excessive social activities or porn viewing.

Signs and symptoms of sexual addiction

Many signs will indicate whether someone or you is addicted to sex. The signs of sex addiction can either physical or emotional. These are mainly the signs of teen sex addict or adults who are addicted to sex.

• Sex becomes of someone`s life with the significant exclusion of other activities. A person who is a sex addict will not perform well at work or school because they spend much time engaging in sexual activities or fantasizing about sex.
• An individual who is addicted to sex will engage more often in phone sex, pornography, computers sex, exhibitionism and sometimes prostitution. Pornography and phone or computer sex is a common habit in teen sex addict, and it is a clear determination that he/she is addicted to sex.
• Masturbation is also a symptom that shows some is significantly affected by sex. The person isolates himself to find time to masturbate. They sleep late at night and wake up very late in the morning so that they can get an opportunity to masturbate.
• Multiple sex partners and movement from one relationship to another. Most people who are addicted to sex do not want to feel abandoned, and they end up in indulging in unhealthy relationships or have multiple partners at the same time. They sometimes cheat on their partners when having sex with them is disappointing.
• Sex addicts who suffer from an extreme case of addiction engage in many criminal activities like incest, rape, stalking and child molestation. These case are common in our societies, and it is a clear indication that someone is addicted to sex.

Treatment of sex addiction

Some people usually doubt that sex addiction is hard to be treated by professionals. It is possible to treat sex addiction by just approaching a mental health professional or a social worker who is licensed. They will address many factors that will help you maintain the sex addiction and porn addiction. Possible treatment of sex addiction include:

• Individual therapy: This includes 30- 60 minutes session with intense counseling and guidance especially in areas of the concurring disorder.
• Group therapy: This a session where a group of people who suffer the same addiction problem comes together to receive the guidance. It will show someone that he/she is not alone.
• Inpatient therapy: This is where the patient resides at the facility for the specific duration so that they can focus entirely on the healing process.
• There are many types of therapies such as 12-step recovery, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, marriage or couple counseling. These treatments focus on the idea of how to reduce the sexual urge to the desired level.

Sex addiction should be address urgently before it reaches the extreme cases. If you realize that you or your partner is addicted to sex, it is essential to seek therapy as soon as possible or buy the sex books that have advice on how to stop or reduce sex addiction.