The heart of darkness : a journey into chronic sexual addiction and the quest for recovery

The processes that are involved in sexual addiction and recovery were explored in this research. A phenomenological-hermeneutic method was employed in interviewing five male recovering sexual addicts. Themes of sexual addiction and recovery were then extrapolated from the words the participants used to express their life experience. Eleven themes characterizing the addiction process emerged from the transcriptions of the participant's in-depth interviews, as well as six themes relating to recovery. It is hoped that a deeper understanding of the sexual addict's internal and external motivations for the use of sex, will be achieved by depicting several addict' experiences in an unfolding story. It is up to readers of this research to draw their own conclusions and to take what is relevant to them from the words of the sexual addicts and the researcher's interpretation of those words. There is one absolute interpretation of the participants' life experiences. This research only suggests possibilities to illuminate interpretations of the lived experiences of the five participants involved.

Authors

• Burke, Michelle
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education

• Sex addiction -- Case studies
• Sex addicts -- Rehabilitation
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/202

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/202