Classifying Hypersexual Disorders: Compulsive, Impulsive, and Addictive Models

Patients with clinically excessive sexual thoughts or behaviors have been categorized as suffering from a compulsive, impulsive, or addictive sexual disorder. Similar considerations apply to a range of other impulse control disorders, such as excessive gambling. We have elsewhere proposed that in such conditions, phenomenological and psychobiological considerations suggest that key components include affective dysregulation, behavioral addiction, and cognitive dyscontrol. We argue here that there are advantages to using terms (such as hypersexual disorder) that go beyond the compulsive-impulsive-addictive delineation, and we advocate that additional work to characterize the phenomenology and psychobiology of hypersexual disorder and other conditions characterized by affective dysregulation, behavioral addiction, and cognitive dyscontrol be undertaken in the hope it will lead to improved assessment and management.