Sex addiction, an illness or an excuse?

By Liz Lockhart

Having suffered from a mental health disorder myself, and having come across little understanding from most around me, I would never doubt the debilitating nature of mental health issues.

Here it comes...however....I have just read an article about the ‘mental health conditions’ of several high-profile individuals and feel that their possible diagnosis and sometimes dubious assessors could bring mental health disorders into disrepute.

Ryan Giggs, according to his patient wife, has an illness and needs her help. The Daily Mail says ‘Ryan Giggs is to seek therapy for sex addiction in a bid to save his marriage’. His affairs are well reported and need no further coverage here.

The American Democratic politician Anthony Weiner, who sent rude pictures of himself to various women, has been described in the media as a ‘sex addict’. ‘He needs treatment’, one expert told the Associated Press, because apparently, without help, ‘sex addicts’ can go ‘completely out of control and destroy their lives’.

According to Michelle Thomson who runs a counselling service in Melbourne, Australia, the problem has hit this area too. She says that referrals for sex addiction have risen from just one every couple of months to about 24 per month.

A rapist who was before the courts in Adelaide having committed a series of rapes had sought treatment for his sexual addiction and, according to a psychological report put before the courts, was now ‘a different person’.

The list goes on but, whilst having every sympathy for the true sufferers of mental ill-health, I question whether, all too often, there is misdiagnosis for many of these people. It is all too easy to excuse purely immoral behaviour by brushing it off as a ‘mental health disorder’.

While I agree that giving psychological help to offenders is a good thing if it prevents further victims, and counselling to spouses who seek to patch up a marriage after an affair, I also feel that all too often calling something an 'illness' simply brushes over personal responsibility. This has the knock-on effect of bringing all mental health conditions into doubt and does an injustice to those who are genuine suffers.