Diagnosis

Your doctor or other mental health professional can do a psychological evaluation, which may involve answering questions about your:

• Physical and mental health, as well as your overall emotional well-being
• Sexual thoughts, behaviors and compulsions that are hard to control
• Use of recreational drugs and alcohol
• Family, relationships and social situation
• Problems caused by your sexual behavior

With your permission, your mental health professional may also request input from family and friends.

Determining a diagnosis

There's an ongoing debate in the psychiatric community about exactly how to define compulsive sexual behavior because it's not always easy to determine when sexual behavior becomes problematic.

Many mental health professionals use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published by the American Psychiatric Association, as a guide for diagnosing mental health problems. Because compulsive sexual behavior doesn't have its own diagnostic category in the DSM-5, it may be diagnosed as a subcategory of another mental health condition, such as an impulse control disorder or a behavioral addiction.

Some mental health professionals consider compulsive sexual behaviors as sexual activities taken to an extreme with significant and negative consequences. Although more research is needed to clarify and classify all the criteria, diagnosis and treatment by a mental health professional who has expertise in addictions and compulsive sexual behaviors will likely yield the best results.