AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist · Certified Gottman Method Couples Therapist · Practicing Therapy Since 1988
Individual Therapy for Sex and Porn Addiction on the North Shore of Massachusetts
Online Sex Therapy for Massachusetts Adults for Problematic Porn Use and Sexual Performance Concerns in in Salem, Beverly, Marblehead, Gloucester, and Newburyport
Specialized Sex Therapy on the North Shore of Massachusetts
You’ve been watching more porn than you want to, and despite repeated attempts to cut back, you keep returning to it.
What used to be an occasional activity has become a regular part of your day. You watch when you have time alone, stay up later than you intended, and sometimes spend much longer looking for something that excites you than you planned.
You’ve tried setting limits and taking breaks. Sometimes you manage for a few weeks before gradually returning to your previous habits.
Recently, you’ve also begun having difficulty getting or maintaining an erection during sex.
At first, you assumed it was an off night. But it happened again, and now you’re beginning to worry about whether it will happen every time you’re with someone.
What’s particularly confusing is that you can still become aroused when you watch porn. You’re attracted to the people you have sex with, but when you’re with someone, you’re increasingly preoccupied with whether you’ll be able to maintain an erection.
You’ve wondered whether watching so much porn has something to do with it. You’ve tried cutting back again, but you haven’t been able to sustain the changes. You’re frustrated that even concern about your sexual functioning hasn’t been enough to help you follow through.
Now you’re starting to dread sexual situations you used to look forward to. You’re embarrassed by what’s happening, worried about disappointing someone, and worried that these difficulties could become long-term sexual concerns.
You don’t know whether pornography is contributing to your erectile difficulties, whether anxiety is making them worse, or whether there’s another explanation. But you know your porn habits have become difficult to control, and you’re tired of trying unsuccessfully to change them.
You want to regain control over your pornography use, understand what’s contributing to your erectile dysfunction, and feel confident having sex again.
what we’ll do together
How I Help You Change Your Porn Habits and Address Erectile Dysfunction
I’ve been a therapist since 1988, and I’m an AASECT-certified sex therapist. My training in sexual health helps me understand the different reasons pornography use can become difficult to control, as well as the psychological and relationship factors that can contribute to erectile dysfunction.
I’ll start by understanding how pornography fits into your sexual life, what has made it difficult to cut back, and what happens when you have trouble getting or maintaining an erection during sex. I won’t assume the two problems have the same cause. Erectile dysfunction can have physical as well as psychological contributors, so I may also recommend a medical evaluation to make sure we’re not overlooking something important.
I’ll help you change the habits that keep drawing you back to pornography, including how you respond when you want to watch it and how to follow through on the limits you’ve set. We’ll look at what happens when your efforts to cut back don’t last and adjust our approach so you’re not left to repeat strategies that have already failed.
We’ll also address the anxiety that can develop after you’ve experienced erectile dysfunction. I can help you become less preoccupied with whether you’ll maintain an erection, communicate more comfortably with sexual partners, and approach sexual experiences without treating every sexual encounter as a performance test.
As we work together, I’ll pay attention to how your pornography habits and sexual functioning are changing. If one improves while the other doesn’t, that tells us something important about where to focus next. I’ll use what we learn to adjust treatment so we’re addressing both concerns rather than assuming that changing one will automatically resolve the other.
Learn more about my approach to sex therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior →
What Can Change With Sex and Porn Addiction Therapy
1. Regain Control Over Your Pornography Use
You can have an evening to yourself without losing hours to pornography. You can decide how much time you want to spend watching, or whether you want to watch at all, and follow through on that decision.
I’ll help you understand what keeps drawing you back to pornography and address the reasons your previous efforts to cut back haven’t lasted. We’ll work on changing how you respond when the desire to watch comes up, and I’ll help you strengthen those changes as you put them into practice between sessions.
You can stop organizing your free time around pornography and trust yourself to follow through on the decisions you make about your sexual behavior.
2. Address Erectile Dysfunction and Enjoy Sex Without Performance Anxiety
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I’ll help you address the anxiety that develops around erectile dysfunction and understand what else may be contributing to your experiences. If medical factors need to be evaluated, I’ll encourage you to seek appropriate medical care while we address the psychological and sexual concerns that sex therapy can help with.
You can approach sex with greater confidence, enjoy the experience rather than constantly evaluating your performance, and work toward improving your sexual functioning.
3. Regain the Sexual Confidence and Spontaneity You’re Afraid You’ve Lost
I’ll help you rebuild your confidence in sexual situations, communicate more openly about what you enjoy, and develop ways of experiencing pleasure that don’t depend entirely on erections or intercourse. We’ll work on making intimacy something you can enjoy again, even when your body doesn’t respond exactly as you hoped.
You can look forward to sexual experiences again, feel excited about being close to someone, and enjoy the sexual spontaneity you’ve been missing.
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 on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
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 on the North Shore of Massachusetts
I’m independently licensed in Massachusetts as a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW1144781). I provide individual sex and porn addiction therapy through secure, HIPAA-compliant video to adults throughout the North Shore.
Areas I serve include:
Salem and nearby communities: Salem, Beverly, Marblehead, Swampscott, Peabody, Danvers, and Lynn.
Cape Ann: Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Essex.
Ipswich and surrounding towns: Ipswich, Hamilton, Wenham, Topsfield, Boxford, Rowley, and Georgetown.
Greater Newburyport: Newburyport, Newbury, West Newbury, Amesbury, Salisbury, and Merrimac.
Southern North Shore: Nahant, Saugus, Lynnfield, Middleton, and North Reading.
I also work with adults throughout Greater Boston and across Massachusetts. All sessions take place online, so you can attend from home or another private location while physically located in Massachusetts.
Common Questions about therapy for out-of-control sexual behavior on the North Shore —
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Pornography use and erectile dysfunction can occur together, but that doesn’t necessarily mean one is causing the other. Erectile dysfunction can have physical, psychological, and relationship-related contributors, and the relationship between pornography use and sexual functioning isn’t the same for everyone.
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I’ll help you examine your pornography habits alongside what you’re experiencing during partnered sex. I won’t assume that pornography is responsible for your erectile dysfunction simply because you’re struggling with both.
If there may be medical contributors, I’ll encourage you to get an appropriate medical evaluation. We can address your concerns about pornography use while also working on psychological factors that may be affecting your sexual functioning.
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You don’t necessarily need to stop watching pornography completely, although reducing or stopping may be appropriate depending on your circumstances and goals.
If you’ve repeatedly tried to cut back and haven’t been able to maintain those changes, I’ll help you address what’s making that difficult. We can also consider whether changes in your pornography habits affect your sexual experiences without assuming that abstinence is the only way to improve erectile functioning.
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Yes. I can help you address both concerns together, without assuming that improvements in one will automatically resolve the other. We’ll work on changing pornography habits that have become difficult to control while also addressing performance anxiety and other psychological concerns affecting your sexual experiences.
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.