Reading Maureen Canning‘s book, Lust, Anger, Love is not easy, especially if you’ve personally experienced sexual abuse or trauma. The case studies she shares can trigger painful memories.
Sexual trauma at any age affects our intimate relationships and most likely causes some rather unhealthy behaviors, including various forms of addiction.
Maureen Canning took the time to answer a few questions about her work as a Clinical Consultant for Sexual Disorder Services at The Meadows, as well as provide more information about what can be found inside her book, Lust, Anger, Love: Understanding Sexual Addiction and the Road to Healthy Intimacy.
I spoke to Maureen for quite some time. This topic hits close to home and has been very challenging for me to write about, discuss and read about but it is an important subject, one that most victims/survivors often try to hard to avoid and one that parents feel uncomfortable talking to their children about.
Hip_M0M: Your book is all about understanding sexual addiction. Let’s start with its definition.
MC: Sexual addiction is a process addiction, meaning you don’t have to ingest anything into your body in order to create a high or an escape from your feelings. A sexual addict is an individual who becomes obsessed to the point of having consequences that are uncomfortable in their lives around sexuality.
Hip_M0M: In your book, you share case studies of clients with stories that stem back to a person’s childhood. Is that common – having some sort of sexual abuse or sexual trauma in childhood that then leads to sexual addiction?
MC: Sexual trauma can be overt or covert, meaning that it can be something that the individual remembers and they remember it as being quite shocking and disruptive to it being much more subtle and not even realizing that it was abusive or that it even had such an effect on them that they became obsessed by it and attempt to undo that original experience.
There are many different behaviors for sexual addiction. I really believe that any individual who is a sex addict is also a love addict and what I mean is that at the deepest level there is a form of an unhealthy need to bond with other people because they didn’t get what they needed as far as emotional nurturance from their mother and/or their father.
Relationally, they go out and look for relationships that recreate that original abandonment or that original lack of nurturance that, oftentimes, gets muddled in with the sexual addiction. You’ll see a lot of individuals, especially women, who do serial relationships or who get obsessive about an individual and can’t leave the relationship. And sex then becomes a weapon or tool – withholding sex, they feel powerful, acting out sexually – they feel powerful over their partners. They’re not getting what they want emotionally and so it comes out in these sexual ways. The dysfunction is typically a duplication of how they felt when the original trauma took place, or the original bond was broken or disrupted.
Hip_M0M: Do you find that people tend to have other issues or other addictions before they really get to the root of the issue?
MC: Yes, it’s typical that most sex addicts are not just sex addicts. They have other addictions going on. What I see is usually 3 – 6 other addictions. They include, but are not limited to: drug addiction, alcohol, eating, workaholism, co-dependency, love addiction. There can also be depression or bipolar disorder. Sex addiction is like any other addiction. Its purpose is to have the individual numb out their feelings so it doesn’t really matter what addiction they’re in at the time, they’re unable to really be present with themselves and tolerate their emotions.
The goal in her work with sexual addicts is to help them create new beliefs around sexuality and come to a point where they are ready to have healthy sexual relationships, often for the first time.
Speaking of healthy sexuality, I wanted her opinion on talking to kids about sex and when the right time might be for having such an important discussion.
MC: Every child is different. If you have a child who is in a more fast-paced environment, has exposure to multi-media resources, has older siblings, that child probably is going to need to be educated earlier than someone who may be in a rural setting, who doesn’t have exposure to the darker side of sexuality and all the resources that can be found online…if a child comes to a parent and has questions, the parent really needs to talk about what is going on with the child in an age appropriate way. If someone at school has mentioned a website or a sexual experience, the parent really needs to step up to the plate and explain it in a way that the child can understand.
If you’ve experienced sexual abuse and are seeking ways to heal from your experience, but don’t know where to begin, I highly recommend a visit to the following sites:
Violence Unsilenced
Band Back Together
You’re not alone. There is support out there. It does get better.
Happy Healthy Hip Parenting
Peace Begins in the Home
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