AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Individual Therapy for Sex and Porn Addiction in Rochester, New York
Online Sex Therapy for New York Adults in Rochester, Pittsford, and across Monroe County
Specialized Sex Therapy in Rochester, New York
You’ve started doing things sexually that you once thought you’d never do, and you’re increasingly uncomfortable with how difficult it’s become to stop.
You’ve enjoyed pornography, sexual conversations online, and meeting new people for sex. Exploring your interests has been exciting, and some of those experiences have helped you discover things about your sexuality that you genuinely enjoy.
But gradually, you’ve started going along with experiences you don’t actually want.
You’ve paid for sexual encounters even though you previously decided that wasn’t something you wanted to do. You’ve met people you weren’t particularly attracted to because the opportunity was available. Sometimes you know before a meeting that you’re not looking forward to it, but after spending hours imagining the encounter and arranging the details, canceling feels strangely difficult. So you go anyway.
Afterward, you’re disgusted with yourself. You had every opportunity to cancel, and you can’t understand why you talked yourself into doing something you didn’t want.
You’ve tried deleting apps, cutting off conversations, and taking breaks from meeting anyone new. Sometimes those decisions last for weeks or months, but eventually another opportunity comes along, and you find yourself making exceptions again.
Recently, you arranged another encounter after spending most of the day debating whether to cancel. Even on your way there, you were thinking about turning around. But you went through with it anyway.
Driving home, you kept thinking about how many chances you’d had to make a different decision and how little those chances seemed to matter.
You’ve always thought of yourself as someone capable of deciding what you want and acting accordingly. Now you’re questioning whether you can trust yourself when it comes to sex. You’re scared of continuing to pursue experiences you regret, especially when you can see yourself making those decisions and still struggle to stop.
You don’t want to give up sexual pleasure or exploring your interests. But you’re tired of putting time, money, and energy into experiences you don’t even want by the time they happen.
You want to understand why you keep pursuing sexual experiences you’ve already decided against, and how to follow through on your own decisions before you find yourself in another situation you regret.
what we’ll do together
How I Help You Regain Control Over Your Sexual Behavior
I’ve been a therapist since 1988, and I’m an AASECT-certified sex therapist. I help people who repeatedly pursue sexual experiences they no longer want, even after trying to change on their own. My training helps me understand the difference between sexual desire, the excitement of anticipating an encounter, and the difficulty stopping once you’ve started pursuing one.
I’ll look closely at what keeps you going after you’ve decided you’d rather stop. Understanding why you continue is important because the treatment that helps you change will depend on what’s driving the behavior. I’ll use what we learn to develop an approach suited to your particular difficulties, rather than relying on the same advice to avoid temptation or exercise more self-control.
We’ll work on making changes at the points where you’ve struggled before. I’ll help you recognize when sexual excitement is beginning to outweigh your own reservations, slow down the decisions that usually lead to another encounter, and learn how to step away from an opportunity even when part of you still wants to pursue it. We’ll also address what makes changing your mind so difficult, so you can enjoy sexual experiences you genuinely want without feeling compelled to continue with ones you don’t.
My job is to help you develop greater control over your sexual decisions while maintaining a sexual life that feels pleasurable and satisfying to you.
Between sessions, you’ll practice what we’ve worked on, and we’ll review how those changes are going. I’ll help you understand why something worked, why another approach didn’t, and what needs to change so you can keep making progress.
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 Rochester and all of Western New York.
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 Rochester, New York
I’m independently licensed in New York State as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW #086198). I provide individual sex and porn addiction therapy through secure, HIPAA-compliant video to adults throughout Rochester, Pittsford, Monroe County, and surrounding areas.
Communities I serve include:
Rochester: Downtown Rochester, East Avenue, Park Avenue, the South Wedge, Corn Hill, NOTA (Neighborhood of the Arts), Highland Park, and Charlotte.
Eastern Monroe County: Brighton, Pittsford, Penfield, Fairport, Perinton, East Rochester, Webster, and Irondequoit.
Southern Monroe County: Henrietta, Mendon, Honeoye Falls, Rush, and Scottsville.
Western Monroe County: Greece, Gates, Chili, Spencerport, Hilton, Brockport, and Churchville.
Nearby Finger Lakes communities: Victor, Farmington, Canandaigua, Geneva, and Macedon.
Additional Western New York communities: Batavia, Le Roy, and Albion.
All sessions take place online, so you can attend from home or another private location while physically located in New York State.
Common Questions about therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior in Rochester —
-
There are several possible reasons, and understanding yours is an important part of treatment.
Sometimes the excitement of arranging an encounter is stronger than the desire to have sex once the meeting approaches. Other times, canceling becomes difficult because you’ve invested time, made plans, or convinced yourself you should follow through.
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, my job is to help you understand what’s happening in your situation and choose strategies that address the reasons you’re struggling to stop.
-
Not necessarily. Having casual sex, using hookup apps, or exploring your sexual interests doesn’t automatically mean you have a problem.
We’ll look at which experiences you genuinely enjoy and which ones you’ve repeatedly pursued despite wanting to stop. Your goals and the difficulties you’re experiencing will guide the changes we make.
I won’t assume that giving up casual sex entirely is the answer. My job is to help you make decisions about sex that you feel comfortable with and are able to follow through on.
-
Yes. Repeated attempts to stop or reduce sexual behavior are a common reason people seek specialized sex therapy.
Deleting apps or avoiding encounters can reduce opportunities temporarily, but those changes may not address what draws you back when another opportunity appears.
We’ll work together to understand why your previous attempts haven’t lasted and develop approaches suited to the difficulties you experience. We’ll also review how those approaches work between sessions and make adjustments when necessary, so that you’re not repeatedly relying on the same strategies that haven’t worked for you.
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.