AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Individual Therapy for Sex and Porn Addiction in New York City
Online Sex Therapy for New York Adults in New York City & All Five Boroughs
Specialized Sex Therapy in New York City
You enjoy using hookup apps, meeting new people, and having casual sex. You like the excitement of knowing that someone you find attractive could be interested in you, too. And in New York City, there are plenty of opportunities to explore those interests.
Sometimes you’re looking for an encounter, and sometimes you just enjoy flirting and wondering what might happen. Even when you’re not planning to meet anyone, you like knowing the possibility is there.
You can open an app while you’re commuting, between meetings, or sitting at home after dinner. Someone sends you a message, you start flirting, and suddenly an ordinary evening has become a lot more interesting.
But you’ve been having trouble deciding when you’ve had enough.
You might open an app intending to look for a few minutes, then spend hours exchanging messages or scrolling through profiles, wondering whether someone even more attractive or interesting will appear. Sometimes you arrange another encounter after you’ve already decided to take a break from casual sex.
You know you’re going back on your decision, but the opportunity is right there. You tell yourself you’re an adult, you’re allowed to enjoy sex, and there’s nothing wrong with meeting someone new.
And you’re right about that. But you also remember why you decided to cut back in the first place.
You’ve been dealing with this for a long time.
There have been nights when you stayed up much later than you intended, mornings when you were exhausted, and plans you abandoned because another sexual opportunity seemed more appealing. You’ve spent money you wish you’d used differently. If you’re in a relationship, you may have argued repeatedly about the apps, concealed encounters, or broken agreements about sexual boundaries.
You’ve deleted apps, promised yourself you’d take a break, and then found reasons to reinstall them. Sometimes you’ve followed your own limits for a while, which makes it even more frustrating when you go back to doing the same things.
And afterward, you can be vicious with yourself.
You’re capable of making difficult decisions in other parts of your life, but when it comes to sex, you keep making promises you don’t trust yourself to keep. You don’t like how often you end up feeling ashamed or disappointed in yourself after something you were excited about just a few hours earlier.
For a long time, you’ve told yourself you’d get a handle on it.
Then recently, you had another evening that went almost exactly like so many others.
You’d planned to do something else. You opened an app for a few minutes, started messaging someone, and decided to see where things went. Hours later, you were still caught up in it, or you’d arranged another encounter you hadn’t intended to pursue.
There wasn’t necessarily anything unusual about that evening. You’d made the same decisions before.
But afterward, you couldn’t stand how familiar it all felt.
You thought about the months or years you’ve spent promising yourself that next time would be different. You thought about the conversations you’ve had, the time you’ve lost, and how often you’ve felt disappointed in yourself.
And you realized you don’t want to spend another year doing this.
You’re not necessarily prepared to give up hookup apps, casual sex, or the excitement of meeting someone new. You’re also no longer willing to keep making promises to yourself that you don’t believe.
You want to enjoy feeling sexually excited without worrying that you’ll end up watching porn for hours or pursuing another encounter you’ve already decided against. You want to feel comfortable with your sexual desires and be able to decide what you do with them, even when the temptation is strong.
what we’ll do together
How I Help You Change Sexual Behavior That’s Become Difficult to Control
I’ve been a therapist since 1988, and I’m an AASECT-certified sex therapist. My specialized training helps me assess what’s happening without assuming that enjoying casual sex or having strong sexual desires is inherently problematic. I’ll want to understand which experiences you genuinely value, what you’ve been trying to change, and how those decisions have been affecting your life.
We’ll look at what makes keeping sexual possibilities available so appealing. Maybe you enjoy seeing who’s interested in you, imagining what an encounter could be like, or knowing you could arrange something exciting at almost any time. I’ll help you understand how the anticipation influences your decisions, including on evenings when you had no intention of meeting anyone.
If you repeatedly return to an app after deleting it, we’ll examine what happens before you reinstall it. You may find yourself thinking about who could be messaging you, wondering what you’re missing, or feeling disappointed by the prospect of an evening without that excitement. Those details help me identify what needs to change beyond simply removing access to the app.
From there, I’ll help you develop ways to make decisions about sexual encounters before you’re caught up in the excitement of a new opportunity, and follow through when that opportunity presents itself. We’ll work on recognizing when you’re beginning to reconsider a decision you genuinely wanted to keep, how to respond to the temptation to make an exception, and how to tolerate the disappointment of passing up something appealing.
We’ll also address the way you’ve been talking to yourself after these experiences. If you’ve spent years criticizing yourself for decisions you haven’t been able to change, I’ll help you examine whether that criticism is contributing to your distress without helping you make different choices. We can take the consequences seriously while developing a more useful way to respond when you struggle.
When you try these changes between sessions, we’ll examine what happens. If you continue checking messages, arrange another encounter you hadn’t intended to pursue, or reinstall an app, I’ll help you identify where your approach stopped working and adjust it rather than asking you to rely on the same promises again.
My job is to help you enjoy your sexuality while making decisions you feel comfortable with afterward, without continually returning to the same experiences and wondering why nothing has changed.
Learn more about my approach to sex therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior →
What I Can Help You Address in Sex Therapy
1. You can begin trusting yourself to follow through on decisions about sex and pornography.
In sex therapy, we’ll look at why previous attempts to change your sexual behavior haven’t lasted and identify opportunities to make different choices before changing course becomes especially difficult.
Together, we’ll develop a plan for those moments and examine what happens when you put it into practice, including what needs to change when something doesn’t go as expected.
You can begin building confidence in your ability to keep the commitments you make to yourself. Being home alone, having an unexpected free evening, or experiencing a strong sexual urge doesn’t have to mean repeating a behavior you’ve decided to stop. You can begin collecting evidence from your own experience that you’re capable of making different choices.
2. You can get your time and attention back instead of organizing your life around sexual behavior.
In sex therapy, we’ll examine how much time and attention sexual behavior has been taking from other parts of your life. That includes time spent anticipating the next opportunity, arranging your schedule, concealing what happened, or worrying about being discovered.
I’ll help you understand why certain situations make sexual thoughts particularly difficult to set aside. We’ll work on recognizing when you’re beginning to organize your time around the behavior and identifying what would help you make a different decision.
You can spend an evening alone doing what you intended, concentrate on work without repeatedly checking a site or app, and enjoy time with people you care about without thinking about when you’ll next have an opportunity for sexual activity. You can regain time and mental energy for the parts of your life you’ve been neglecting.
3. You can understand what you’re seeking from sexual behavior and find other ways to meet those needs.
In therapy, we’ll explore what you’re getting from sexual behavior that you haven’t been able to find elsewhere. It might be relief from stress, excitement, feeling wanted, or something you haven’t recognized yet.
I’ll help you understand what you’re feeling and wanting in those situations, including needs you’ve struggled to express or satisfy in other parts of your life. We’ll explore how you can meet those needs more directly, without repeatedly engaging in sexual behavior that conflicts with your intentions or creates unwanted consequences.
You can begin responding to loneliness, stress, rejection, boredom, or a desire for excitement in ways that genuinely address what you’re missing. You can have more choices about how to spend your time and meet your needs, rather than repeatedly turning to sexual activity and regretting it afterward.
4. You can stop organizing your life around secrets and begin earning back your partner’s trust.
If your sexual behavior has involved dishonesty or broken agreements, I’ll help you understand what taking responsibility requires. We’ll examine what makes honesty difficult, including fear of your partner’s reaction, shame about your choices, or the temptation to minimize what happened.
I’ll help you prepare for difficult conversations and learn how to answer questions truthfully, acknowledge the harm you’ve caused, and avoid making promises you aren’t prepared to keep. We’ll also discuss what consistent behavior and accountability can look like over time, recognizing that your partner may need considerable time before they feel comfortable trusting you again.
You can stop deleting conversations, concealing charges, inventing explanations, or worrying about what might happen if your partner picks up your phone. Instead, you can begin living more honestly and giving your partner reasons to believe what you say. You can feel better about how you’re treating the people who matter to you, even while rebuilding trust remains difficult.
5. You can enjoy your sexuality without feeling ashamed of your desires or afraid of losing control.
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I’ll help you examine your sexual desires and preferences without assuming that frequent sex, pornography, masturbation, or consensual sexual interests are inherently unhealthy.
We’ll distinguish between sexual desires you enjoy, behaviors you’ve decided you want to change, and feelings of shame or discomfort that may come from judgments you’ve learned about sexuality. We’ll also explore how to pursue sexual pleasure in ways that respect your values, your boundaries, and any agreements you’ve made with a partner.
If you’re partnered, we can address difficulties discussing sex, differences in desire, and concerns about intimacy. When appropriate and with your agreement, your partner may participate in some sessions.
You can feel more comfortable with your sexuality while becoming more confident in your ability to make deliberate choices. You can enjoy sexual pleasure without treating every desire as a problem, and make decisions about your behavior without repeatedly violating your own boundaries or relationship agreements.
What to Expect in Sex Therapy for Porn and Sex Addiction
Understand Your Sexual Behavior So You Can Change It
In our first sessions, I’ll ask about your sexual history, the behaviors you’re concerned about, and how they’ve affected your life. We’ll discuss what you’ve already tried to change, what happened when you tried, and what you want to be different.
I’ll also want to understand what makes the behavior so compelling for you. Maybe you’ve noticed that certain feelings or situations make it harder to resist a certain behavior. Or perhaps you keep making the same decisions even when you know exactly what the consequences could be.
I’ll help you examine what happens before, during, and after those experiences, including the choices you make long before you engage in the behavior. We’ll also explore your sexual desires, relationships, and experiences with sex to understand what may be contributing to the difficulty you’ve had changing.
My experience as an AASECT-certified sex therapist helps me recognize when sexual habits, emotional difficulties, relationship concerns, or conflicts about sexuality need different kinds of attention. That means our work can focus on what’s relevant to your situation rather than relying on the same advice you’ve already tried.
Make Changes That Work for You
Once we understand more about what’s happening, I’ll help you address the difficulties that have made changing your behavior so challenging.
That might involve working through shame that makes you reluctant to be honest, learning how to handle strong feelings without immediately turning to sexual activity, or addressing sexual dissatisfaction and relationship difficulties you’ve been avoiding.
We’ll also identify opportunities to make different decisions before you reach the point where you typically return to the behavior. I’ll work with you on how to respond in those situations, and we’ll discuss what happens when you try those changes outside our sessions.
When something doesn’t go as planned, we’ll examine why. Rather than simply asking you to try harder, I’ll help you understand what happened and what needs to change in our approach.
Sex Therapy for LGBTQIA+ Adults and People in Open Relationships
I have extensive experience working with LGBTQIA+ clients and people in open, polyamorous, and other consensually non-monogamous relationships.
I don’t assume that having multiple sexual partners, enjoying casual sex, using hookup apps, or having unconventional sexual interests means your sexual behavior is unhealthy.
What I want to understand is whether you’re able to make decisions about your sexual activity that are consistent with your intentions, your values, and the agreements you’ve made with partners.
If you’ve broken relationship agreements, we can address that honestly without treating your relationship structure or sexual identity as the problem.
Sex Therapy for Neurodivergent Adults
I’m an autistic therapist who also trains other mental health professionals in working with neurodivergent clients. My teaching includes autism and sexuality, ADHD and executive functioning, sexual and gender diversity, and adapting therapy to neurodivergent people’s needs.
If you’re autistic or have ADHD, I’ll consider how your attention, impulsivity, need for stimulation, routines, sensory experiences, and communication style may affect the sexual behavior you’re trying to change.
I’ll use my experience to develop approaches that fit how you think, communicate, and make decisions. These differences can be important when we’re figuring out why previous attempts haven’t worked and what approaches are likely to be useful for you.
Who is A good fit for Sex and Porn Addiction Therapy?
I work with adults whose pornography use or consensual sexual behavior has become difficult to control and is causing problems in their lives. This can include people who are facing legal consequences related to their sexual behavior, such as an arrest for purchasing sex.
You may be a good fit for therapy with me if:
You’ve tried to stop watching porn, using hookup apps, paying for sex, or engaging in other sexual behaviors, but you keep returning to them.
You’re spending more time or money on sexual activity than you intended, and it’s beginning to interfere with your work, relationships, or other responsibilities.
Your partner has discovered sexual behavior you’ve been hiding, and you’re scared your relationship may not survive another broken promise.
You haven’t been caught, but you’re increasingly worried about what could happen if you continue.
You’re doing things you once told yourself you’d never do, and you’re concerned about where your behavior could lead.
Situations Outside My Clinical Practice
→ I don’t provide specialized treatment for sexual offenses, including sexual assault, rape, voyeurism, child sexual abuse, or offenses involving child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This includes situations where someone hasn’t been arrested or charged.
→ I also don’t provide forensic psychosexual evaluations or prepare reports for legal proceedings.
AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist for Problematic Sexual Behavior
I’m Kate McNulty, LCSW, LICSW
I’ve been a licensed therapist since 1988, and I’ve worked with individuals and couples dealing with out-of-control sexual behavior for decades.
Over the years, I’ve worked with people whose sexual behavior has put their relationships, careers, finances, or personal lives at risk. Many have tried repeatedly to stop on their own, sometimes keeping their behavior secret for years before deciding to get help.
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I bring specialized training in human sexuality to understanding why changing sexual behavior can be so difficult. I’m interested in what makes certain experiences compelling, what keeps someone returning to them, and what needs to change for them to make different decisions.
I help clients understand why they keep returning to sexual behavior they want to change, address what has made previous attempts unsuccessful, and make decisions they can follow through on.
If the description on this page sounded like your situation, I’d like to help.
Logistics
Pricing, scheduling, and online therapy sessions
All sessions are conducted by secure, HIPAA-compliant video. I work with adult clients in NYC and all five boroughs.
Sessions are private pay, billed at $500 per hour and $750 for 90-minute sessions. I am not in-network with insurance and cannot bill them directly. For more information about pricing, please see the pricing page.
How to get started in sex and porn addiction therapy
To schedule your first appointment, please choose a day and time on my secure, HIPAA-compliant calendar by clicking the button directly below.
After I approve your request, typically within one business day, you’ll receive new client forms via email, which you’ll review and digitally sign before we meet.
Areas Served in New York City
I’m independently licensed in New York State as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW #086198), and I work with NYC clients via secure, HIPAA-compliant video across the state.
I work with adults in every Manhattan neighborhood, including:
Lower Manhattan: Financial District, Battery Park City, Tribeca, SoHo, NoHo, Nolita, Hudson Square, Greenwich Village, East Village, West Village, Meatpacking District, Chelsea, and the Lower East Side.
Midtown Manhattan: Midtown East, Midtown West, Hell’s Kitchen, Hudson Yards, NoMad, Flatiron District, Gramercy, Murray Hill, Kips Bay, Sutton Place, and Turtle Bay.
Upper Manhattan: Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Lincoln Square, Lenox Hill, Carnegie Hill, Yorkville, Roosevelt Island, Morningside Heights, Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood.
I also work with adults throughout the other New York City boroughs, including Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. If you live in Brooklyn, you can learn more about my individual sex and porn addiction therapy in Brooklyn.
All sessions take place online, so you can attend from home, your office, or another private location while physically located in New York.
Common Questions about therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior in New York City —
-
Not necessarily. I don’t consider casual sex, using hookup apps, or having multiple consensual sexual partners inherently unhealthy.
I’ll want to understand which sexual experiences you enjoy and want to continue, which ones have become difficult to control, and whether your behavior conflicts with your own boundaries or agreements with partners.
We can work on helping you make decisions about sexual encounters that you’re comfortable with afterward, rather than assuming that avoiding casual sex altogether is the only solution.
-
Deleting an account can temporarily remove an opportunity, but it doesn’t necessarily change what makes you want to return to hookup apps or porn sites.
For example, you may miss the excitement of seeing who’s interested in you, finding new sexual content, or imagining an encounter. Those experiences can be rewarding long before you decide to meet someone or watch porn.
I’ll help you understand what keeps drawing you back, recognize when you’re beginning to reconsider your limits, and develop ways to respond when you want to reopen an account or return to a site. We’ll also examine why earlier attempts haven’t lasted so we’re addressing the reasons you return, not simply asking you to delete everything again.
-
Yes. I provide individual sex therapy exclusively through secure, HIPAA-compliant video, and you can attend from any private location while physically in New York or another state where I’m authorized to practice.
You’ll need a reliable internet connection and a space where you can speak freely without being overheard.
If attending from your office is convenient, that’s fine, provided you have enough privacy to discuss sensitive concerns about your sexual behavior.
Still Have Questions about therapy for sex and porn addiction?
Use the button below to send me a message. I will respond within 2 business days.