AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Individual Therapy for Sex and Porn Addiction in Tampa, Florida
Online Sex Therapy for Florida Adults in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and across the Tampa Bay Area
Specialized Sex Therapy in Tampa, Florida
Your partner recently discovered that you’ve been exchanging sexual messages with other people online again. They’ve told you they’re tired of the secrecy and broken promises, and they’re seriously considering leaving.
You’ve been seeking sexual attention online for a long time. Sometimes that means exchanging explicit messages or photos, and other times it means using apps to connect with people who are interested in you sexually.
You enjoy knowing someone new finds you attractive. You look forward to their messages, think about the conversations afterward, and sometimes spend hours pursuing that attention when you’d intended to do something else.
You’ve deleted apps, ended conversations, and promised yourself you were done. For a while, you feel relieved and confident that you can leave it behind. But eventually, you start missing the excitement. You tell yourself there’s no harm in a little flirting or seeing who’s interested.
Soon, you’re exchanging sexual messages again, wondering how you talked yourself into doing the very thing you promised to stop.
Your partner has discovered these interactions before. You’ve seen how much the secrecy hurts them, and you genuinely wanted to change. But this time, they’re talking about separating. They no longer believe your assurances that it won’t happen again, and you’re scared they’ve reached the point where another promise means nothing.
You love your partner and don’t want to lose your relationship. But after several unsuccessful attempts to stop, you’re beginning to doubt whether you can give up the excitement of receiving sexual attention from someone new, even when your relationship is at stake.
You want to stop seeking sexual interactions online that threaten your relationship, understand why your previous efforts haven’t lasted, and make changes you can trust yourself to maintain.
what we’ll do together
How I Help You Change Sexual Behavior You’ve Struggled to Stop
I’ve been a therapist since 1988, and I’m both an AASECT-certified sex therapist and a Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist. I bring that experience to helping people who genuinely want to change their sexual behavior but keep returning to choices that threaten their relationships.
We’ll look closely at what makes sexual attention from other people so compelling for you. I’ll help you understand what you're anticipating when you open an app or start a conversation, what keeps you engaged longer than you intended, and what happens when you try to walk away. Understanding those moments gives us specific places to intervene.
We’ll also examine how you talk yourself into returning to online sexual interactions. When you begin telling yourself that a little flirting is harmless, you’ll start to recognize what’s happening and question the reasoning that has allowed you to make exceptions to your own decisions. Together, we’ll develop ways for you to respond to the desire for attention without beginning another interaction you know you don’t want to pursue.
We’ll address what accountability looks like in your relationship after repeated secrecy and broken promises. Using my couples therapy training, I’ll guide you in answering your partner’s questions honestly and respecting their need to make decisions about the relationship. You’ll be able to take responsibility without becoming defensive or putting pressure on your partner to trust you before they’re ready.
Between appointments, you’ll practice making different decisions when you feel drawn toward online sexual interactions. During our sessions, we’ll examine what has helped you follow through, where you’re still making exceptions, and what we need to change so that your progress can last long-term.
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 Tampa, St. Petersburg, and across the Tampa Bay area.
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 Tampa, Florida
I’m registered in Florida as an out-of-state telehealth provider (registration #TPSW16). I offer individual sex and porn addiction therapy through secure, HIPAA-compliant video to adults throughout Tampa, Hillsborough County, and the surrounding Tampa Bay area.
Areas I serve include:
Tampa neighborhoods: South Tampa, Hyde Park, Davis Islands, Downtown Tampa, Channelside, Harbour Island, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, Westshore, and Ybor City.
North and northwest Tampa: Carrollwood, Northdale, Citrus Park, Westchase, Town ’n’ Country, Lutz, and New Tampa.
Eastern Hillsborough County: Brandon, Valrico, Bloomingdale, FishHawk, Seffner, Temple Terrace, and Plant City.
Southern Hillsborough County: Riverview, Apollo Beach, Ruskin, Sun City Center, Gibsonton, and Wimauma.
St. Petersburg and Pinellas County: St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, Dunedin, Safety Harbor, Oldsmar, Pinellas Park, and Seminole.
Additional Tampa Bay communities: Wesley Chapel, Odessa, Land O’ Lakes, New Port Richey, and Zephyrhills.
I also work with adults throughout Florida. All sessions take place online, so you can attend from home or another private location while physically located in Florida.
Common Questions about therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior in Tampa —
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You might. Whether you’ve had sex with someone in person isn’t what determines whether specialized treatment would be helpful.
If you repeatedly engage in online sexual interactions you’ve tried to stop, spend more time pursuing them than you intended, or continue despite serious consequences for your relationship, those are good reasons to seek an assessment.
I’ll assess how much control you have over your sexual behavior, how it’s affecting your life, and what kind of treatment would be appropriate. You don’t need to have had a physical affair or meet the criteria for a particular diagnosis to benefit from sex therapy.
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Yes. If your partner is considering separation or has already left, we can address the sexual behavior that contributed to the crisis while also helping you take responsibility for the harm you’ve caused.
I can’t promise that changing your behavior will persuade your partner to stay. But you can begin making meaningful changes regardless of what they decide about the relationship.
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My training in sex therapy allows me to help my clients examine the sexual excitement, expectations, and decisions involved in the behavior without assuming that sexual desire itself is the problem.
We’ll look at where your previous efforts have broken down and develop changes you can practice in everyday situations. During our sessions, I’ll help you evaluate what’s effective and make adjustments when something isn’t working.
My experience in couples therapy also helps me address the relationship consequences alongside the behavior itself, so you can take responsibility for what happened while making changes that aren’t dependent on whether your partner decides to stay.
Still Have Questions about therapy for Out-of-control sexual behavior?
Use the button below to send me a message. I will respond within 2 business days.