Making Advances
And You Thought Treating Female Partners
Was Challenging!
Treating Male Partners of FSLAs
• SASH Conference 2012
• San Antonio, Texas, September 20, 2012
• Marnie C. Ferree & Linda Hudson
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
MALE PARTNERS - INVISIBLE ONES
• Unique shame
• Cultural
stereotypes
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
ADDITION IS A FAMILY DISEASE
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
ADDITION IS A FAMILY DISEASE
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
MODELS FOR TREATING PARTNERS
• Strong disagreement about best approach
• Strong agreement about commonalities
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
CHARACTERISTICS OF MALE PARTNERS
• Angry
• Also addicted
• Avoidant
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
SYSTEMS THEORY
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
SYSTEMS THEORY
• Roles
• Rules
• Attachment issues
Sex and love addiction is an intimacy
disorder.
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
CO-ADDICTION MODEL
NOT responsible for
addict’s behavior.
IS responsible for own personal and
relationship issues.
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
CO-ADDICTS HAVE OWN ISSUES OF…
• Trauma
• Unhealthy Coping
• Impaired Intimacy
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
HISTORY OF ABUSE
Addict
Spouse
Sexual
81%
81%
Physical
72%
71%
Emotional
97%
91%
Carnes, P. (1991). Don’t call it love: Recovering from sexual addiction. Minneapolis,
MN: Compcare Publishers.
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
CO-ADDICT’S COPING STRATEGIES
 Search and seizure
 Control
 Complain
 Threaten
 Ignore
 Rage
 Focus on kids/ work
 Manipulate
 Withdraw/shut down
 Become more sexual
 Engage in own
addiction
 Tolerate impaired
intimacy
 Self-righteousness
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
CO-ADDICTION IS…
 Focusing on someone else’s life
 Believing you can control people
and events outside yourself
 An obsession with the possibility
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
TRAUMA MODEL
• “Partner sensitive” emphasis that
focuses on “sexual addition-induced
trauma.”
• Partner receives equal clinical
attention
Steffens & Means (2009). Your Sexually Addicted Spouse - How Partners Can
Cope and Heal
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
TRAUMATIC NATURE OF DISCOVERY
OR DISCLOSURE
 Creates PTSD-like symptoms (in 70% of
a small study)
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
TRAUMATIC NATURE
OF DISCOVERY
OR DISCLOSURE
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
TRAUMATIC NATURE OF DISCOVERY
OR DISCLOSURE
 Creates PTSD-like symptoms (in 70% of
a small study)
 Causes constant triggering, reactivity,
hypervigilance, panic, anxiety, somatic
symptoms
 Normal, predictable responses of people
who have been deeply betrayed
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
PARTNER’S WORK: ATTENDING TO
MULTIPLE TRAUMAS
 Relational betrayal, deception,
emotional abuse, marginalization,
manipulation
 “Gaslighting” by sex addict
 “Treatment-induced” trauma
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
EFFECTIVE TREATMENT
Dual Track:
Addressing betrayal
Addressing core issues
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
EFFECTIVE TREATMENT
Dual Track:
Addressing betrayal
Addressing core issues
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
DISCLOSURE
• Disclosing Secrets
• Surviving Disclosure
by Deborah Corley & Jennifer Schneider
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
Belief
System
Unmanageability
PARTNER’S
SYSTEM
Impaired
Thinking
Partner’s
Cycle
Despair
Preoccupation
Fantasy
Distraction
Strategies
Crisis
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
HEALING
• Boundaries
• Unique Issues/Challenges
Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts
www.sash.net/makingadvances
Making Advances
A Comprehensive Guide for Treating
Female Sex and Love Addicts
Edited by Marnie C. Ferree
Writers:
Susan J. Campling
Robin Cato
M. Deborah Corley
Marnie C. Ferree
Linda Hudson
Alexandra Katehakis
Kelly McDaniel
Anna Valenti-Anderson
Jill Vermeire
Sonnee Weedn
All proceeds benefit the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health
www.sash.net/makingadvances