Is It Love or Is It Addiction? By Brenda Schaeffer D.Min M.A.L.P. C.A.S.
In this book, Brenda Schaeffer looks at what happens when our romantic and emotional attachments become compulsive or addictive, often referred to as Love Addiction.
Love addiction is a relational issue in which a person tries to regulate their emotional self and fill an emotional void by merging with their partner. Love Addiction often stems from experiences of abandonment as a child through some form of physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual neglect. This creates a deep abandonment wound that the child grows up with and carries into their adult relationships often unconsciously picking partners who are not emotionally available and as a result increase their sense of loss and abandonment.
For clients who are working with Love Addiction, this book is a great resource. But it is also a great resource for partners of sex addicts who want to look at their own patterns of attachment in their primary relationship.
Naked In Public: A Memoir of Recovery from Sex Addiction and Other Temporary Insanities By Staci Sprout
Staci Sprout is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist who practices in Seattle, Washington. She is also a recovering sex addict. And, in case it escaped your notice, she is female.
In her recently published memoir, Staci tells the story of her journey as a sex addict and then as a sex addict in recovery. There are few books written that talk about sex addiction from a personal perspective and fewer yet that address what it is like to be a woman and a sex addict.
Staci vulnerably shares her experience, allowing the reader into all the sad, wacky, gracious, and redemptive moments along the way to healing.