Depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions can make compulsive sexual behavior worse. Get help for problems with alcohol and drug use. These can cause a loss of control that leads to poor judgment and sexual behaviors that aren't healthy. Avoid risky situations.
Hypersexuality can exist as a sign of bipolar disorder or on its own. Also referred to as compulsive sexual behavior or sexual addiction, hypersexuality is described as a dysfunctional preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that are difficult to control.
Use as a coping skill: Hypersexuality can also be used as a mechanism to deal with past trauma. The individual can become compulsive about undoing the trauma, redoing it differently, or understanding it.
Like other disorders, people with hypersexuality can experience internal or external triggers. Typically, hypersexuality triggers are either a strong desire to escape a feeling or a strong reminder of the pleasure experienced through sexual fantasy or activity.
Scientists aren't totally sure what causes hypersexuality. Possible theories include: Imbalance of mood chemicals in your brain. High levels or overactivity of certain chemicals in your brain called neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin) might result in increased sexual desire and behavior.
The causes of hypersexual behaviour are not well understood. However, sex addiction and hypersexuality may sometimes be caused by traumatic experiences, distress, or by mental illness, such as bipolar disorder. Adults who have been sexually abused as children may display increased sexual behaviour.
Hypersexuality is derived from particular pathways of post-traumatic symptoms. Depression is strongly related to hypersexuality, although gender has an important role in our model. Depression and guilt are serial mediators of trauma-hypersexual behavior relations.
ADHD can impact a person's sex life in many ways, including hypersexual tendencies. This could be due to symptoms of ADHD, lower dopamine levels, or medication side effects. But more research is needed to confirm these connections.
Some people with borderline personality disorder (sometimes referred to as BPD) can be markedly impulsive, seductive, and extremely sexual. Sexual promiscuity, sexual obsessions, and hypersexuality are very common symptoms for both men and women with BPD.
Treatment for compulsive sexual behavior usually involves talk therapy — also called psychotherapy — medicines and self-help groups. The main goal of treatment is to help you manage urges and reduce problem behaviors while still enjoying healthy sexual activities and relationships.
Characteristics of Hypersexuality
Compulsive sexual behavior. Recurring and uncontrollable sexual fantasies. Difficulty establishing and maintaining a relationship with other people, especially a romantic partner because of their preoccupation with sex. Inability to get sexual urges under control.
Problems with alcohol or drug use. Another mental health condition, such as depression, anxiety or a gambling addiction. Family conflicts or family members with problems such as addiction. A history of physical or sexual abuse.
If you have ADHD, you may have a high sex drive. You may think about or try to have sex frequently. You may also use pornography regularly. On the other hand, some medications that treat ADHD can cause a low sex drive.
Spontaneous daydreaming can be a subtle symptom of ADHD for some people, especially girls and women. Excessive or disruptive daydreaming may also be linked to other mental health conditions, like maladaptive daydreaming.
The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th Edition (DSM-5) does not recognize hypersexuality as an official disorder or diagnosis.
Problematic hypersexuality (PH) can be defined as the experience of problems due to intense and/or highly frequent sexual behavior, preoccupations, thoughts, feelings, urges, or fantasies that are out of control [1,2].
Anxiety and depression have been linked to hypersexual behavior and have been reported as the most common diagnoses among hypersexual individuals.
Separations, disagreements, and rejections—real or perceived—are the most common triggers for symptoms. A person with BPD is highly sensitive to abandonment and being alone, which brings about intense feelings of anger, fear, suicidal thoughts and self-harm, and very impulsive decisions.
People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.
Though it may feel like love strikes us in the heart, it is understood that the release of sex hormones estrogen and testosterone is what drives our lustfulness arousal (1). Testosterone plays a role in initiating sexual activities and pursuing sexual desire and behaviour in both men and women (2).
The Ancient Greek source of nymph meant “young woman” or “bride,” and may be most familiar in the form of beautiful, powerful, sexualized, mythological maidens.
Drug treatments like fluoxetine, an SSRI, proved to be effective for hypersexual symptoms, especially in individuals with existing depression. Fluoxetine is a well-known antidepressant that increases serotonin in the brain to improve mood, sleep, and energy.