30 Task Model
What does treatment for sex addiction look like?
After years of following the recovery of 1000 sex addicts from all walks of life and utilizing their “best advice” for recovery, Dr. Patrick Carnes and his research team studied realistic ways sex addicts transformed their despair and chaos into peaceful sobriety. As a result of systematically investigating the nature of sex addiction and recovery through their stories, he formulated 30 essential tasks, further broken down into performables. These 30 tasks are broken into three sections: early recovery tasks, long-term recovery tasks (internal and external), and relational/family recovery.
While all these 30 tasks need to be dealt with during recovery, they are not necessarily completed in order. However, they are key to your recovery and can provide a roadmap to follow in treatment, a point of reference for your recovery, clarity in defining goals, and identification of new areas for continued growth.
Lifespan Integration
How does healing work?
Lifespan Integration (LI) is a gentle, body-based therapeutic method which heals without re-traumatizing by utilizing repetitions of a visual life-timeline of memories. This repetition of timeline memories facilitates neural integration and rapid healing. It relies on the body-mind to heal itself. The apparent simplicity of timeline repetitions has a profound healing effect on the brain.
After experiencing LI therapy, people report changes in their spontaneous reactions to current stressors in more age-appropriate ways. Clients who have completed Lifespan Integration therapy report that they feel better about life, are more self-accepting, and are better able to enjoy enjoy more intimacy in their relationships.
Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy
(originated from Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing Psychotherapy)
The body doesn’t forget.
Somatic (“relating to the body”) attachment psychotherapy is a body-oriented therapeutic tool used to treat trauma-related disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It opens the door to neurophysiological and subsequent psychological change rooted in the attunement of how the body reacts to the environment. Over time, as the autonomic nervous system (ANS) reorganizes information and emotions, attachment patterns emerge and emotions stabilize through relational repair while it re-interprets previous-held perceptions of the world and one’s identity.
Some of our earliest experiences of love and attachment with caregivers and others can be less than ideal and accompanied by relational trauma. In infants and children, these experiences form a template neurophysiologically in the right brain and can imprint the psyche with longstanding patterns of impaired functioning which can hinder long-lasting fulfilling and meaningful relationships.
The somatic attachment therapist uses back and forth dialogue with the client about the expression within one’s bodily system (ANS), utilizing it as the central instrument through which the client’s story becomes increasingly congruent with the rest of the body.
Group Therapy
Recovery growth with others . . .
Along with individual counselling, attending small group therapy can be a powerful experience of healing and growth. When group members share their experiences and stories, they recognize similarities in experiences and themes from their lives, reducing shame, fear, and confusion. Small groups allow its members to practice the skills they are learning, build trust with each other, and share with each other on a deeper level.
The goal of small group therapy is for its members to gain the courage to face the difficulties in their lives including grief and loss, healing from their traumas, and taking ownership of their own recovery. The benefits of attending small group therapy are numerous:
Long-term meaningful relationships
Boost self-awareness
Nourish and promote learning
Pinpoint need for and strategies for change
Development of a sense of community
Identify strategies for improved decision-making
Formation of a support network
Learn meditative practices to promote relaxation