Portrait of a sex addict

Abstract

This article examines the benefits of art therapy as a treatment modality for sex addicts. Often a hidden disease, the artwork of sex addicts offers a tangible representation of the disorder with the potential to instruct both the client and the clinician. Art can function as a conduit for the healing of childhood trauma, providing safety and containment through use of metaphor and personal symbolism while facilitating direct expression of emotions and experiences through use of images rather than words. Creativity gives adult clients permission to play without serious regression, thereby nurturing the child within and providing opportunity to accomplish as adults what they could not do as children. Perhaps most importantly, art creates a place where the sex addict can become visible, actively confronting the secrecy of the addictive system. There is great power in the imagery of sex addicts. In committing these images to paper, they become real to all that see them.

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