Alexandra Katehakis - Erotic Intelligence

Praise for Erotic Intelligence

Erotic Intelligence provides couples healing from the pain of sexual addiction with a road map to rewrite their sexual story, from one of betrayal, to one of healing, and finally to one of vibrant erotic sex.

Stefanie Carnes, Ph.D., editor of
Mending a Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts

Erotic Intelligence celebrates recovery from sex addiction to healthy sexuality. Its a breath of fresh air.

John Bradshaw, author of
Reclaiming Virtue

Erotic
Intelligence

Erotic
Intelligence

Igniting Hot, Healthy Sex

While in Recovery from Sex Addiction

Alexandra Katehakis, MFT

Health Communications, Inc.
Deerfield Beach, Florida

www.hcibooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Katehakis, Alexandra.

Erotic intelligence : igniting hot, healthy sex after recovery from sex addiction / Alexandra Katehakis.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references

eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9402-7 eISBN-10: 0-7573-9402-7

1. Sex. 2. Sex addiction. 3. Intimacy (Psychology) 4. Sex (Psychology) I. Title.

HQ21.K2474 2010

616.85'833dc22

2009028856

2010 Alexandra Katehakis

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and, marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 334428190

Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch
Interior design and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield

To all the men and women
in sexual recovery who have had
the courage to change the
things I can...

Contents

Introduction

eleven Spiritualizing Sex

Will I ever have sex again?

Understandably, this question is asked most often by sex addicts in the process of recovery. Layers of other queries lurk behind this primary question: Will my partner ever respond sexually to me again? How will I know what to do to please my partner and myself? What is healthy sex, anyway?

The either/or world of addiction recovery rules out having sex in the early stages, but what happens after that? Addicts still have a desire for sexual relations, and they are now recognizing a need to understand how they can have sex in healthy ways.

Most experts in the field of sex addiction have focused on understanding how it comes to be and how to stop the self-destruction. Alex Katehakis leads a new generation of sex addiction therapists helping recovering people claim a sexuality and intimacy that theyve likely never had. In this honest and candid book, Erotic Intelligence: Igniting Hot, Healthy Sex While in Recovery from Sex Addiction, she uniquely addresses a multitude of ways to show how enjoying good sex and recovering from sex addiction can coexist.

Throughout the book, Alex explains how recovering addicts can cut their own grooves to support healthy behavior changes. She shows them how to build a coupleship that is mutually supportive and coaches them on being playful, sensual, and intimate, thus overturning the very premise on which sex addiction starts.

Alex applies her experience not only as a clinician but also as a supervisor of therapists who have completed the Certified Sex Addiction Therapist training program. Her concise, clear thinking continues to help dozens of professionals become stronger therapists. It is rare to have someone of her creative abilities also write masterfully about one of the biggest challenges in sex addiction recovery. I consider this book a great gift to all recovering addicts and their partners, who will benefit from its instruction, and an impressive, effective resource for those who help them.

Sit back and enjoy the ride toward a life of rewarding intimacy as you get answers to the questions you are asking. Yes, you can have sex againin the healthy, supportive, sensuous ways you will discover within the pages of Erotic Intelligence.

Dr. Patrick J. Carnes, author of
Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction

The idea for this book came to me in 2000 when I taught my first weeklong workshop on healthy sexuality at the Skyros Centre on the island of Skyros, Greece. Having worked with sex addicts for only three years and recently married, I was determined to understand the makings of eroticism and what it took to sustain a healthy sex life over time. The workshop participants came mainly from the UK and Ireland, and none of them identified as sexually addicted. However, they all had stories about guilt and shame in relation to their own sexuality, the topic of sex itself, and the messages they got from their culture.

The questions I constructed for that workshop were designed to open conversation among the participantsand open conversation they did! Every night at dinner, those in my workshop chatted about sex in great detail while participants in the mosaic or poetry classes sat slack-jawed, listening. Aminor contagion took over, and soon the entire campus was animated and laughingall talking openly about sex in healthy and bawdy ways.

Many thanks to the Skyros Centre for inviting me to teach that year, and thank you to the workshop participants for so generously revealing their unspoken secrets about their sexuality. Youll find many of the questions I conceived for that workshop in this book.

A special thank-you to all the men who have been in my Monday night group over the years, specifically Mark T., Mark H., Glendon T., Van K., Howell T., John A., Howard B., Jimmie W., and Thomas M.

Although the names of the recovering addicts and their partners whose stories appear in this book have been changed for confidentiality, I thank every one of them. Without their honesty, courage, and generosity, writing this book wouldnt have been possible.

I have been influenced by many teachers, making this book a synthesis of ideas from all of them. I am deeply grateful to all of these people: To my mentor, John Cogswell, for teaching me to listen to the impulses in my body, helping me heal my psyche, leading me to my spirituality, and for inspiring me to become a therapist. To Patrick Carnes, noted psychologist and author, for fearlessly naming the problem of sexual addiction and for forging a path for people to heal their sexuality. To Roger Ford for his coaching and belief in me and to Larry Zucker for teaching me how to ask respectful questions. To Robert Weiss and Bill Owen for training me to be a first-rate sex addiction therapist. To David Schnarch for creating the Crucible Approach, a solid model for sex therapy. To Ruth Morehouse for her patience and clarity in supervising me in the Crucible Approach. And to those in the Wednesday morning group for their steady guidance.

To Noel Larson and the Zontain Women for their wisdom and willingness to dance. To Marion Soloman for helping me heal, encouraging me to write, and introducing me to Allan Schore. To Allan Schore and the Friday morning group for making my brain grow. To Aaron Alan and Jenner Bishop for contributing to the dating section, to Aaron for his feedback on the manuscript, and to Chris Donaghue for his research assistance. My thanks to the women I lean on personally and professionally: Marta Stiles, Eugenia Buerklin, Julie Branca, Kathleen Gray, Margo Ingham, Tracy Masington, and Jess Sorci.