A client asks – How can I overcome an unhealthy addiction to masturbation?
I want to start with a disclaimer – my response here is a general response and in no way captures the nuances of a particular situation. If there are useful ideas in it take those and feel free to leave what remains. I would be happy to work in collaboration with you and engage more specifically in a therapeutic setting to address any questions or to further explore these ideas or develop others as we attempt to reduce your suffering.
Second, therapy is never a necessity. Therapy in general I believe to be valuable. Obviously. It isn’t obvious to me, however, that it is always needed. In some cases I find that it is counterproductive and even harmful. You don’t need a therapist in order to reduce the amount of suffering in your life nor do you need a therapist in order to address your deepest issues. Having a therapist that you can trust, who isn’t trying to fix you (the thing that isn’t broken, diseased, disordered) does make the process less painful and even (at times) enjoyable.
There are a number of ways to approach therapy in a more economical way and I can refer you to a blog post that I have written on that matter if you go to https://reamtexas.com/david-head%2C-lpc-s/f/budget-therapy.
Regarding sharing your deepest issues and thoughts with other people a therapist is a professional who is not likely to meet you with any judgement and at best will refrain from expressing their judgement. I like to keep in mind that therapists are human and have had all the same confrontations with the same issues that I have or am confronting. They aren’t ideal humans; they are just humans in an idealized professional role. I also like to think that you aren’t that unique in your experience as to be outside of the realm of human behavior – a subject that they are likely to have mastered as part of their training to be in the profession.
All in all you should expect to find a person you can relate to who will understand you and you may discover that your issues aren’t so deep as to be foreign to them.
Addressing the guilt will probably do you better than anything else., Nothing is good or bad except what thinking says is so. Masturbation isn’t morally wrong. Inherently it is a natural phenomenon that brings you and the body pleasure. It may disrupt you and you may even feel under a compulsion, and you can even feel bad about it. Not that I believe feeling bad about it does anything positive for you.
That is all that guilt is. You have decided that you have wronged yourself in some way. Perhaps violating your values or abusing yourself of the time and energy. So, in order to compensate for the perceived harm you are going to make yourself punished to the degree that it balances out the perceived harm. That is all that guilt is – a thinking error. You don’t balance out the harm, you just add to it. So set aside feeling bad about doing something that is natural and normal.
If you want to release the power that it seems to hold over you, allow it. Adopt an attitude of allowance towards it. Let yourself masturbate and enjoy it. Do it with a conscious discipline towards it? For example, you can say I will give myself one hour a day to enjoy myself physically, in my schedule that is 8:00 so from 8- 9 every day I have that time. If it needs to be less or more – you decide. If I feel like masturbating at noon, I will tell myself “No, wait until 8.” It is easier to deny myself gratification for 8 hours than it is for eternity. So, say 8 rolls around and you don’t feel like it or you are busy with something else that you would rather do. Then skip that time and catch the next day at 8. You don’t have to use the time if you don’t want to.
By allowing it you minimize the stigma and power it has over your guilt. If done realistically, you get a feel-good hit off serotonin and dopamine for doing it according to plan. (thus, decreasing the feeling of depression which is the absence of these two neurochemicals). Your behavior becomes self-regulated. A template and skill that you would greatly value from in almost all domains of your self experience.
