Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak talk to Dr. Sibylle Georgianna about sexual compulsivity and discuss common misconceptions.

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Transcript

Dave: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 174. Dr. Sibylle Georgianna Misconceptions About Sexual Compulsivity.

Production Credits: [00:00:11] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave: [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:37] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, one of the great assets I believe that we have at the Global Center for Women and Justice, is the academic work and research that’s so much a part of us being integrated highly into the higher education institution at Vanguard University. And of course, a big part of our work is studying the issues. And I’m so glad today that we have a guest who’s an expert in studying these issues that will really help us to also get some really new perspective on something I don’t think we’ve talked about much before.

Sandie: [00:01:25] Absolutely. So, I’ll let you take it away and introduce her.

Dave: [00:01:28] I’m pleased to welcome to the show today Dr. Sibylle Georgianna. She is a clinical psychologist and the founder of The Leadership Practice and its affiliates sexual health of Orange County California. As a certified sex therapist, certified sex addiction therapists, certified clinical partner specialist, and certified EMDR therapist, Sibylle is treating teens and adults experiencing sexual difficulties and compulsions. She is also an assistant faculty of Vanguard University of Southern California, where she teaches and oversees the graduate research programs of Vanguard’s masters of organizational psychology students supposed research and publications are focusing on self-regulation and self-leadership. She enjoys her family surfing and Southern California’s weather. We’re so glad to welcome you to the show, Sibylle.

Sibylle: [00:02:09] Thank you for having me. The weather, I had to put that in the description.

Sandie: [00:02:14] Yeah, well and I know you know you come from an area in Europe where it’s much colder, right?

Sibylle: [00:02:20] Yes, I grew up in Germany and went to school there and it was very much like the northern and north-west coasts here in the United States. So, I appreciate any little bit of sunshine that we can get here.

Sandie: [00:02:32] Well, for me it’s been such a delight to get to know you this year and I’m so glad you’re at Vanguard. And you spoke it Ensure Justice where we began a conversation that I hadn’t really studied a lot before. And what I understood was that we in our communities often have a lot of misperceptions about sexual compulsivity and if anybody is listening and you missed Ensure Justice, we’ll put a link to the recordings and you can hear Dr. Georgianna and many others by clicking on that link.

Sandie: [00:03:11] But let’s jump into this, and look at just a few of these perceptions that we have and talk about those. So, the first one is that sexual addiction and compulsivity does not exist. So, talk to us about that. Dr. Georgianna.

Sibylle: [00:03:30] Yes and I appreciate to share on this because we don’t really have guidelines that are fully accepted in the medical community in the psychiatric community. And they are just listed as a condition to explore further and need more research. And at the same time, we know that individuals that are being studied using brain scans for describing sexual compulsivity to the providers coming in, that they have a very similar brain as to cocaine addiction that we see in addicted individual’s brains. So, the complexity, even if we don’t have clear guidelines yet, that are embraced in the treatment community. However, we see that there is physical evidence that nowadays technology can provide. We do hope that this physical evidence will be used to then also supports a clear diagnosis and something that is being embraced as a viable diagnosis in the medical community.

Sandie: [00:29:20] OK. And I think it’s important for some of our listeners with a professional background, to understand that part of that is taken from the DSM4 so that we understand that we’re talking about classifications that are tracked and recognized across the psychological, intellectual community so to speak. And because you are so precise, I made really a lot of notes so that I can be equally as precise. I admire your attention to detail. You’re one of the most accomplished research professors on this subject that I’ve ever met. And so, when you were speaking at Ensure Justice, one of the misconceptions that you addressed is that sex work is a choice that women consent to it and can make a lot of money. And that was really a departure from your normal language, but it captured the attention of so many people who were attending Ensure Justice. Can you speak to that and why that’s not true?

Sibylle: [00:30:16] Thank you for that background. I think what is so difficult in this conversation, is that we do have some medical information, and we have some studies and surveys, and then we have information that for instance, everybody can basically broadcast through social media. And that piece of the misperception, that this is something that people choose. And there are really no strings attached, apart from generating an income source, is really reflected more on what we see in let’s say, YouTube videos, and what is so commonly portrayed in the media or social media. However, if we really would then have a survey assess interview really go in-depth with the person who may have presented themselves in the social...