ABSTRACT
Sexual addiction presents in a variety of ways, with problematic behaviours clustering in recognisable phenotypic patterns. This chapter first examines the differential diagnosis of sexual addiction, drawing the reader’s attention to medical and psychological conditions that need to be ruled out before a diagnosis of sexual addiction is made. Thereafter, the most common clinical presentations of the disorder are described, focusing in detail on the specific patterns of behaviours that present and cluster together in latent profile analysis. An appreciation of the myriad of presentations of sexual addiction allows the therapist to tailor treatment to the patient’s specific symptomatology.
‘The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.’
Alfred Kinsey (quoted in Time Magazine, 1966)