The Roles of Shame and Guilt in Hypersexual Behavior

Abstract

Studies among people struggling with hypersexual behavior commonly report that shame needs to be addressed when treating this population. These studies theoretically distinguish that it is shame and not guilt that exacerbates hypersexual behavior, yet no study to date has demonstrated this difference empirically. This observation led to the current investigation in which a sample (N = 177) of people seeking treatment for pornography use anonymously filled out measures of hypersexuality, shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and motivation to change unwanted behavior. A hypothetical path model of the constructs was analyzed yielding significant positive relationships between shame-proneness and hypersexuality as well as guiltproneness and motivation to change. The data support previous findings that shame is active among people seeking treatment for hypersexual behavior. This study adds an additional element to the story by empirically demonstrating that shame and guilt have opposing relationships with hypersexuality and motivation for change.

Religiosity, Developmental Context, and Sexual Shame in Pornography Users: A Serial Mediation Model

“…Because of its visceral nature, shame often develops into pervasive and chronic shame-proneness, "turning the person inside out" (Sedgwick & Adams, 1995, p. 38). Consequently, feelings of shame are associated with a person's sadness, fear, internal anger (Lichtenberg, 2007;Morrison & Ferris, 2009), feelings of unworthiness, and perceived judgment of self by another (Gilliland, South, Carpenter, & Hardy, 2011). In shame, the person feels alone, rejected, and scorned by others.…”

“…Consequences, such as self-hostility, that come from engaging in sexual behaviors become predictors of even greater sexual shame (Reid, 2010). Sexual shame is related to numerous clinically relevant issues such as narcissism (Kinston, 1983;Schwartz, 1991), relational dysfunction (Mollon, 2005;Tangney, 2007), aggression and violence (Brown, 2004), body-shaming (Calogero & Thompson, 2009;Shadbolt, 2009), dissociation (Dubrow-Eichel, 1993Kaufman, 1985), impaired development (Schwartz, 1991), sexual dysfunction (Hastings, 1998;Shadbolt, 2009), hypersexuality and paraphilias (Dearing, Stuewig, & Tangney, 2005;Dhuffar & Griffiths, 2014;Gilliland et al, 2011;Reid et al, 2009), sexual addiction (Carnes & Adams, 2013;Laaser, 1991), and low self-esteem (Baum & Fishman, 1994;Morin, 1995;Tillotson, 1997).…”

A biopsychosocial view of sex addiction

“…Shame and guilt have a long tradition as both causes and consequences in people experiencing addictions but recent research has shown that whereas shame is likely to increase addictive behaviour, guilt can be a significant motivator to overcome it (Gilliland, South, Carpenter, & Hardy, 2011). Shame can be described as a painfully negative emotion where the self is deemed bad and unworthy, whereas guilt is a negative judgement about a behaviour.…”

Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder in the ICD‐11

“…Upon examination, such individuals may not actually exhibit the clinical characteristics of the disorder, although they might still be treated for other mental health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression). Additionally, individuals often experience feelings such as shame and guilt in relationship to their sexual behaviour 2 , but these experiences are not reliably indicative of an underlying disorder.…”