Sexual Addiction Counseling at Van Rheenen Counseling empowers men to overcome habitual behaviors and experience freedom and contentment in relational intimacy.
Are You Struggling with Sexual Addiction & Pornography?
How could something so wonderful also be the cause of so much brokenness? Sex is a beautiful gift from God that is meant to be enjoyed in the relational intimacy that marriage provides. But so often, it wounds us more deeply than anything else ever could.
Are you or a loved one feeling trapped in habitual sexual behaviors that you can’t seem to shake? You keep vowing that it will never happen again, only to fall back into it over and over again. You feel powerless in the face of your passions and desires. You find yourself wondering why prayer isn’t working. “Does God not hear my plea to take this temptation from me?” You can’t understand why your strength and resolve don’t seem to ever be enough in the heat of the moment. You feel shame and guilt for your actions, but you don’t know where to turn for help. Seeking help feels too risky and too terrifying.
Sexual Brokenness Is Extremely Prevalent in Our Culture
You don’t need me to tell you that we live in a hyper-sexualized culture. Sensual images are almost impossible to hide from in this Internet age. You are probably all too familiar with the experience of going online to check the news, only to find yourself bombarded with images that awaken your sexual desires.
Many people’s first exposure to sex happens at a young age and is often unintentional. A friend shows you some porn at a sleepover, you stumble upon a web site by accident, a friend shows you an image in class on his phone, or you find your dad’s old magazines under his bed. Maybe your first exposure was even more sinister. Maybe you experienced sexual abuse of some kind. Perhaps it was a babysitter, a friend, a family member, or someone you trusted and viewed as a guardian.
These early exposures wound us deeply because sex is extremely powerful. When we are given access to sex at such a young age, we aren’t prepared for it and we don’t know how to handle it properly. The topic rarely comes up at home, so chances are that you were left alone to navigate these treacherous waters on your own with no guidance to speak of. Exposure naturally leads to exploration, which can lead to deeply entrenched habits, behaviors, and thoughts that fuel sexual addiction. The result is a shallow, incomplete, and impoverished view of sex and an insatiable lust for more. Sexual struggles leave a person feeling deep shame and loneliness as well.
Isolation and Hiding
You might currently feel like you are living a double life defined by secrecy and hiding. You think to yourself, “If people really knew what I was like under the surface, they would be disgusted with me and want nothing to do with me ever again.” So you hide even more and vow to get better on your own.
Sexual brokenness thrives in the dark and in secrecy. The growth and healing we all seek is found in honest vulnerability and bearing one another’s burdens. You were not meant to walk this healing journey alone.
We were all created with sexual desires and drives to varying degrees. One of the greatest lies today is that sex is just sex, no big deal. Sex at its core is relational. It is one of the most intimate things you can do with another person. It is not just a product to consume or a bodily function to take care of, like going to the bathroom or scratching an itch.
Using Sex to Meet Your Needs
We often get into trouble when we use sex as a means to fulfill our needs in unhealthy ways. This would look like using sex or pornography as a way to escape, avoid, and numb painful or uncomfortable thoughts and emotions in life. It could also look like using sex to measure and obtain self-worth, significance, value, and desirability. We all deeply long to know that we are desired and have significance.
Sex and pornography give us a taste of that without the inherent risks and difficulties of real life relationships. A porn video cannot reject you. You are in control of the entire process. A one-night stand carries much less risk and responsibility than a committed relationship.
Sex has probably been a comfort to you over the years and kept those stressful and painful thoughts at bay. It is a scary thing to consider giving that up, but you might also have a sense that these sexual activities ultimately do not deliver as advertised. They feel good and comforting at first, but ultimately leave you feeling unknown and unloved. They leave you hungry for more out of life.
Counseling Can Help: The Path of Growth and Healing
Together we can begin the journey towards freedom and contentment.
Men struggling with sexual brokenness and habitual sexual sin often find that counseling gives them the safe-haven they have been searching for, where they can experience being known and accepted in a non-judgmental way. Counseling can help you discover and explore your internal world of thoughts and feelings, so that you can understand what legitimate needs you have been attempting to meet with your sexual behavior. You can then pursue those needs in more healthy ways that are actually life giving.
I can help you identify and notice the life circumstances that make you more likely to act out sexually. You will be equipped with tools to withstand these potential triggers and empowered to ask for help when you need it. The journey of recovery is marked by failure, repentance, forgiveness, and growth.
Men who seek out counseling also often experience healing from wounds of the past. Those wounds come with heavy baggage that wears us down and influences how we view ourselves. In counseling, you get to experience yourself in a new light, as someone who has worth and who is deeply loved and valued. God sees you, knows you intimately, and has not rejected you. Instead, He is passionately pursuing after you. It is my hope that your time with me will give you a new, more accurate experience of yourself and a new experience of what relationships can look like for you in the real world as well.
I can help you to live more vulnerably and more honestly, so that you can build a community for yourself where you truly feel known and loved for who you are. No more hiding, no more pretending, no more going back to something that promises but never gives satisfaction.
We were created to be known and to enjoy deep relationships with others. You do not need to struggle alone anymore. These things can be scary and shameful to say out loud, but I promise you will find no judgment or condemnation from me.