Just one week after entering into treatment for “Sex addiction”, Harvey Weinstein has now checked himself out but promises to continue working with doctors outside of a treatment facility. Experts explain the difference between an actual addiction and the excuse that’s been used before.
The now too common narrative of the rich powerful business man using his success to abuse the ones around him has come to light in Hollywood and with more and more celebrities speaking out, Harvey Weinstein has took to the excuse of an undiagnosed and untreated “sexual addiction”. The numbers continue to climb and now an unprecedented 50+ women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd and Asia Argento, Mr. Weinstein has begun the explanation regarding his actions.
After the report published by the New York Times on October 5th, it detailed “decades” worth of sexual harassment, ending in settlements with numerous victims, including actress Rose McGowen.
Harvey Weinstein made a statement in response to the article published by the New York Time, claiming his being raised in the age of the 60’s & 70’s is what led him to be the aggressor his accusers claim him to be. His now since resigned advisor Lisa Bloom repeated his statement saying “He denies many of the accusations as patently false”
Days after the report hit, the mogul was fired by the board of the company that bears his name. On Oct. 10, the Times added onto its original story with new allegations, from powerful A-listers Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie (both of whom have won accolades for their work with Weinstein). Later that day, The New Yorker published a report of its own, with three allegations of sexual assault and a 2015 audio clip in which Weinstein is heard admitting to groping Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez. The former executive released a statement asserting that “any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” promising that he had begun counseling, and expressing hope that “if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.”
Now Mr. Weinstein has moved onto his “second chance” phase and begun the redemption process for the accused, victim of his own demons storyline to explain his actions. But specialists aren’t buying it and are prepared to explain why.
According to Nicole Prause, PhD, and a licensed psychologist in California and reaseach scienstis at Liberos, a sexual biotechnology company.
“I have no idea of the details of his case. However, sexual harassment and assault have never been proposed as behaviors of sex addiction that I have seen,”
She follows up by saying that while sex addiction therapists commonly lump sexual offenders in with sex “addicts” in their treatment programs, “I and many other treatment providers believe this is both inappropriate and dangerous. It gives the false impression to others than the person’s behavior is going to improve and might be trusted in the future.”
Marty Klein, a licensed marriage & family therapist and certified sex therapist, offers some other possibilities for the root cause of Weinstein’s behaviors.
He writes: “Why not see his primary problem as…
- The abuse of power?
- The incredible lack of empathy?
- Masochism or self-destructiveness?
- The fear of being insignificant, of not even existing?
- The inability to keep marital vows?
- The lack of integrity?
- The inability to feel sufficiently nourished by an incredible career?”
He argues that “real addiction is about the body’s distorted ability to metabolize a substance” like drugs or alcohol — a crucial distinction that doesn’t apply to sex.
“The made-up disease of ‘sex addiction’ allows the American public to look at Harvey Weinstein (and Anthony Weiner, Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen ect) and smugly say ‘that’s not me. I’m not like that,'” Klein writes.
Aside from Weinstein’s recent scandal, there is debate within the medical community in whether or not sexual addiction is a real condition.
Sex addiction is not a recognized diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), considered to be the “bible” for any professional who makes psychiatric diagnoses.
The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) states on its website that it does not recognize sex addiction as a mental health disorder. Its official statement reads:
“AASECT 1) does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and 2) does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge.”
In 2013, Prause, a researcher in the department of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior at UCLA at the time, published a study that found that the brains of so-called sex addicts did not respond to sexual stimuli in the way that an addict’s does.
It is not meant to exclude that certain behaviors, including excessive viewing of pornography or having sexual urges that feel out of control, are not a problem for some people, says Prause. “But we should not be treating them as an addiction,” she stressed.
To learn more about addiction treatment contact TheRecover.com and locate a local professional for treatment.
Also published on Medium.
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