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Excited to share this one with you all!
After over a year of work, including hundreds of hours of work by my lab, we have concluded our systematic review of the Compulsive Sexual Behavior related literature.
Here are the highlights (they ain't pretty) https://psyarxiv.com/r6947
After over a year of work, including hundreds of hours of work by my lab, we have concluded our systematic review of the Compulsive Sexual Behavior related literature.
Here are the highlights (they ain't pretty) https://psyarxiv.com/r6947
This review subsumes 371 studies that we found published on compulsive sexual behaviors (CSB) since 1995.
Why 1995?
Well, 1998 wast the last time a major journal in clinical psychology published a serious review on compulsive sexual behaviors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9564585/
Why 1995?
Well, 1998 wast the last time a major journal in clinical psychology published a serious review on compulsive sexual behaviors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9564585/
That 1998 review concluded, more or less, that the notion of "sexual addiction" was interesting and potentially important, but basically based on clinical whims of various therapists (with virtually no data).
We wanted to check if those conclusions still held.
We wanted to check if those conclusions still held.
the good news: There is lots of information out there now on compulsive sexual behaviors! Like... a whole lot.
In fact, there is so much information that the World Health Organization just voted, in 2019, to include a new diagnosis of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (and you guys thought they just did COVID stuff).
Since 1995 our review identified **hundreds** of empirical studies examining compulsive sexual behaviors, and even more case reports and theoretical papers. So, Gold/Heffner's 1998 conclusion about minimal data is no longer true.
Here ends the good news.
Here ends the good news.
Here's the not good news:
a whole bunch of the data and studies out there are not what you might think of when you think of **good** research.
We found 13 treatment studies (not case reports, but actual studies), of which less than half used any sort of randomized design)
a whole bunch of the data and studies out there are not what you might think of when you think of **good** research.
We found 13 treatment studies (not case reports, but actual studies), of which less than half used any sort of randomized design)
We found a handful of neuroscience studies, most of which provide very little usable information about the structure or mechanisms underlying neurobiology of compulsive sexual behavior disorder. Some of this research is good, but it's all nascent, at best.
We found a metric poop-ton of cross-sectional designs in non-clinical samples. Yes, that is an official measurement.
We found **literally zero** epidemiological works, and only 6 nationally representative samples, of which all were in the U.S., Poland, or Australia.
