Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Individual Therapy for Sex and Porn Addiction in Oregon
Online Sex Therapy for Adults With Out-Of-Control Sexual Behavior Throughout Oregon
Specialized Sex Therapy in Oregon
You’ve made the decision so many times that you’re tired of hearing yourself say it.
Maybe you told yourself you’d stop watching porn, deleted your accounts, or decided you were finished contacting people for sex. You felt certain about it. You knew how much trouble the behavior had already caused, and you didn’t want to keep living this way.
And you did stop, at least for a while.
Then you had a stressful week, an argument with your partner, or a night when you were home alone. You started thinking about it again. Maybe you convinced yourself that looking at a few pictures wouldn’t hurt, or that you could exchange messages with someone without taking things any further.
Before long, you were back doing something you’d been determined to stop.
What bothers you most may be how familiar it all feels. You’ve been through the disappointment afterward, the decision to stop, the period when things seem to be improving, and the moment when you realize you’re doing it again.
You don’t even know whether to believe yourself anymore when you promise to change.
You’ve tried to figure out what makes you return to it. Sometimes you can connect it to feeling stressed, lonely, angry, or rejected. Other times, you were having a perfectly ordinary day. You had things you wanted to do, but you ended up spending an hour watching porn or looking for someone to meet.
You may find yourself thinking about sex when you’re trying to work, checking whether someone has replied to a message, or looking forward to having the house to yourself. There’s always something else that needs your attention, but you keep making time for behavior you’ve repeatedly decided to stop.
And then there’s what you’ve been keeping from other people.
Maybe your partner discovered the browser history, the messages, or the money you’ve spent. They want to know how they can believe you when you’ve already promised to stop before. You wish you had an answer.
Or perhaps your partner doesn’t know. You still have time to change things before they find out, and that makes it tempting to believe you can handle it yourself just one more time.
You may feel ashamed of how much effort you’ve put into keeping something secret that you say you don’t even want to keep doing. Sometimes you’re more upset by your own dishonesty than by the sexual behavior.
You want to make a decision about your sexual behavior and know you can follow through on it. You’re tired of making the same promises, disappointing yourself, and worrying that the next time could cost you something you’re not willing to lose.
Learn more about my approach to working with out-of-control sexual behavior →
How I Help You Change Sexual Behavior That Feels Out of Control
By the time someone contacts me, many of them have already spent years trying to change their sexual behavior. They’ve made promises, set restrictions, avoided certain situations, and tried to hold themselves accountable. Some have even been in therapy before.
I’ve been a therapist since 1988, and I’m an AASECT-certified sex therapist. I bring specialized knowledge of human sexuality to problems that can be difficult to understand through the lens of impulse control or willpower alone.
Sometimes someone has spent years trying to stop sexual behavior without understanding why it’s so compelling. They may have overlooked important sexual concerns, difficulties in their relationships, or the role that attention, excitement, or emotional relief plays in their decisions.
I also understand that the same behavior can mean different things to different people. Watching porn, pursuing sexual encounters, or seeking sexual attention doesn’t necessarily serve the same purpose for everyone. The advice that helped someone else may have little to do with your situation.
I’ll use my experience in sexual health and relationships to help us understand what your previous attempts have missed and determine what needs attention now.
Learn more about my approach to individual sex therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior →
How Your Life Can Change With 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
Understanding Why You Haven’t Been Able to Change Your Sexual Behavior
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. 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.
Working Through What’s Been Keeping the Behavior Going
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+ and 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. 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.
I also have extensive experience working with LGBTQIA+ clients, including people whose sexual interests or relationship arrangements fall outside conventional expectations. We can talk openly about your sexuality while staying focused on the behavior that’s creating problems in your life.
You’ll be working with someone who understands the intersection of sexuality and neurodivergence well enough to teach other therapists about it.
I’ll use that expertise to help us understand your particular difficulties and develop ways of addressing them that fit how you think, communicate, and make decisions.
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 across Oregon.
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 Throughout Oregon
I’ve been independently licensed in Oregon (LCSW license #L1201) since 1988. I provide individual sex therapy through secure, HIPAA-compliant video across the state.
This includes:
Portland and the surrounding metro area, including Hillsboro, Beaverton, Gresham, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Wilsonville, Tualatin, West Linn, Forest Grove, Happy Valley, Milwaukie, and Sherwood
The Columbia River Gorge, including Hood River and The Dalles
Central Oregon, including Bend, Redmond, Sisters, and Prineville
The Willamette Valley, including Eugene, Springfield, Salem, Keizer, Woodburn, McMinnville, Newberg, Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon, and Roseburg
Southern Oregon, including Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass, Central Point, and Klamath Falls
Eastern Oregon, including Pendleton, La Grande, Hermiston, Baker City, and Ontario
The Oregon Coast, including Astoria, Seaside, Tillamook, Lincoln City, Newport, Florence, Coos Bay, North Bend, and Brookings
If you’re anywhere in Oregon, I can work with you.
Common Questions about therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior in Oregon —
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There may be several reasons, and that’s something we’ll investigate in therapy.
I’ll ask about the times you’ve successfully stopped, what was different during those periods, and what happened before you returned to the behavior. We may discover that you’ve been relying on avoiding opportunities, that certain circumstances are especially difficult to handle, or that sexual behavior has been serving a purpose you haven’t fully understood.
We’ll use what we learn to address the difficulties that previous attempts haven’t resolved.
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Yes. You don’t have to wait until your partner discovers something or your relationship is in crisis.
We can examine the behavior you’re trying to change, the reasons you’ve been keeping it secret, and what honesty and responsibility require in your situation. If you’ve violated relationship agreements, we’ll also discuss the consequences of those decisions and how to begin addressing them.
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No. I provide individual therapy exclusively through secure, HIPAA-compliant video.
I’m independently licensed in Oregon and work with adults throughout the state, including Portland, Eugene, Salem, Bend, Medford, and smaller communities.
You can attend from home or another private location while you’re physically in Oregon, or from another state where I’m authorized to practice.
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.