Hypersexual disorder


Hypersexual disorder is a pattern of behavior involving intense preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges and activities, leading to adverse consequences and clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important functions. It was proposed in 2010 for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition of the American Psychiatric Association.

Criteria

People with hypersexual disorder experience multiple, unsuccessful attempts to control or diminish the amount of time spent engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors.
For a valid diagnosis of hypersexual disorder to be established, symptoms must persist for a period of at least 6 months and occur independently of mania or a medical condition.

History

Hypersexual disorder was recommended for inclusion in the DSM-5 by the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Workgroup. It was ultimately not approved. The term hypersexual disorder was reportedly chosen because it did not imply any specific theory for the causes of hypersexuality, which remain unknown. A proposal to add sexual addiction to the DSM system had been previously rejected by the APA, as not enough evidence suggested to them that the condition is analogous to substance addictions, as that name would imply.
Rory Reid, a research psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Los Angeles, led a team of researchers to investigate the proposed criteria for Hypersexual Disorder. Their findings were published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine where they concluded that the given criteria is valid and the disorder could be reliably diagnosed.
The DSM-IV-TR, published in 2000, includes an entry called "Sexual Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified", for disorders that are clinically significant but do not have code. The DSM-IV-TR notes that Sexual Disorder NOS would apply to, among other conditions, "distress about a pattern of repeated sexual relationships involving a succession of lovers who are experienced by the individual only as things to be used".