What causes one person to enter into a life-long relationship, while someone else moves from person to person, romance to romance? How does one distinguish between love and the out-of-control behavior of addiction? This paper addresses these issues of love, differentiating between what Maslow has called B-love, love for the being of the other, and D-love, love which fills a deficiency within oneself. Sexual addiction, with its unfulfilled quest for unity with another, is the outer limit of D-love. The form behavior addiction takes depends on what is being defended against. Sexual addiction, which frequently has its roots in sexual abuse, is usually accompanied with extreme levels of unhealthy shame. Successful treatment will focus on building positive relationships with self and other.
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Sarah J. Reed (2001) studied this question.
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