Sexual Compulsion: Uncontrolled Impluse Response to Contextual or Event Triggers

Uncontrolled, impulsive behavior is a key factor among individuals who engage in poor lifestyle choices. For many individuals, the complications of uncontrolled impulse lead to involvement in criminal activity and may even lead to issues of substance abuse or involvement in risky sexual behavior.

Sexual compulsion is the type of impulsive behavior that arises out of uncontrolled sexual fantasies. For individuals who suffer from sexual compulsion, there is a tendency to express sexual fantasies in exaggerated fashion, often engaging in pornographic material, engaging in Internet chats about sex or even having multiple sex partners. With over six percent of the adult population believed to suffer from sexual compulsion, this behavior and mental health complication has become a key factor of concern in our society.

If you, or someone you know, suffers from complications of impulse control with symptoms of sexual compulsion, it is important to understand those behaviors and impulses are often triggered by physiological, psychological and even social triggers. When entering into rehab or some form of treatment for sexual compulsion, it is quite common for the program to focus upon the physiological and psychological aspects of the complication. However, managing the social aspects of sexual compulsion are also important to impulse control and rehabilitation.

In many cases, social triggers may involve people or places that bring about either a contextual trigger or an event-centered trigger. Determining what types of triggers bring about the sexual compulsion is important to the rehabilitation program. Taking an approach where the most obvious or worse triggers lie, is the first step in the rehabilitation program. For many sexual compulsion behaviors, this involves removing exposure to pornographic material, removing access to Internet and possibly avoiding individuals or places that are linked to sexual compulsion.