When Sexual Behavior Is Hurting Your Life or Relationship, You Don’t Have to Work Through It Alone
If you find it hard to control pornography use, sexual behavior, secrecy, or repeated broken promises, you probably already realize that just deciding to “do better” is often not enough.
Maybe you have tried to stop before. Your partner might be hurt and waiting to see if things will really change this time. You could feel ashamed of your choices and wonder why the same patterns keep coming back.
Pacific Behavioral Healthcare’s men’s groups offer a confidential space for men who want to change problematic or compulsive sexual behaviors, including issues often called sex addiction or porn addiction.
Group therapy offers something individual therapy cannot fully provide. You get to work with other men facing similar challenges, practice honesty and accountability, learn from each other, and see that real change does not mean living with shame forever.
You can take responsibility for the harm you have caused without letting it define who you are.
Online Men’s Therapy Group
Online
Anywhere in Washington
2 Hours
Small, closed groups
Dr. James Olsen
Specialist-led therapy
More Than a Support Group: Specialized Therapy for Problematic Sexual Behavior
PBH’s groups are led by therapists and focus on treatment, not just on reporting whether members have stayed abstinent.
Members build connection and accountability while working on deeper issues to understand and change the patterns that led them to seek help.
Depending on your situation, that may include:
- Understanding the patterns and circumstances surrounding problematic sexual behavior
- Developing practical strategies for changing behaviors that feel difficult to control
- Recognizing triggers and interrupting destructive cycles
- Becoming more honest and accountable
- Understanding the impact of secrecy, deception, infidelity, or pornography use on a partner
- Developing greater emotional awareness and capacity for empathy
- Learning healthier ways to respond to distress, loneliness, shame, conflict, or sexual feelings
- Improving emotional and relational intimacy
- Developing a healthier relationship with sexuality
- Building a life and relationships that are more consistent with your values
Group sessions combine education, therapeutic support, accountability, and interaction with other members, helping you understand the factors driving your behavior while developing practical skills for lasting change.
Group Therapy That Takes Relationship Repair Seriously
For many men in our groups, the effects of their sexual behavior reach beyond themselves.
A partner might have found pornography, sexual messages, an affair, or repeated deception, which can deeply affect how safe the relationship feels. Your partner may feel angry, hurt, suspicious, distant, or unsure if they can trust you.
Stopping a behavior does not automatically repair what happened around it.
When a relationship has been hurt, recovery often means learning to respond to your partner’s pain without becoming defensive, developing genuine empathy, taking responsibility for your actions, and understanding that rebuilding trust takes time.
Group therapy is not about learning the right words to end conflict. It helps you build honesty, accountability, empathy, and the skills needed to repair relationships for lasting change.
PBH can also coordinate group treatment with individual therapy, couples therapy, or specialized support for a betrayed partner when appropriate.
You Don’t Have to Decide Whether You’re “Really a Sex Addict” Before Joining
Some men come to PBH convinced that they have a sex or pornography addiction. Others dislike the addiction label but know that something about their sexual behavior needs to change.
You do not need to settle that question before asking for help.
PBH treats problematic and compulsive sexual behavior seriously, but we do not assume everyone has the same disorder or that every behavior has the same cause.
Sexual behavior can be influenced by many interacting factors, including compulsivity, impulsivity, emotional regulation, relationship patterns, sexual functioning, shame, mental health concerns, learned behavior, values conflicts, accessibility and opportunity, and other individual circumstances.
Our approach is to understand your unique pattern, what keeps it going, the harm it has caused, and what needs to change.
What Happens in Group?
These men’s therapy groups are small, closed, and meet online for two hours each week. The program focuses on privacy, consistency, connection, education, therapy, and support.
Over time, the group allows you to do more than talk about relationships. You build meaningful relationships within the group and have opportunities to practice new ways of relating to others.
This means practicing being open instead of hiding, listening instead of defending, giving and receiving feedback, noticing how others see you, and learning to stay present even when conversations are hard.
For men who have struggled with secrecy, isolation, avoidance, shame, or trouble with intimacy, these experiences can become a key part of treatment.
Current Online Group Times
All groups meet weekly for two hours and are facilitated by Dr. James Olsen.
Is This Group Right for Me?
It may also be appropriate if you want to:
- Stop repeating behaviors despite previous efforts to change
- Better understand why particular patterns keep returning
- Become more honest and accountable
- Address secrecy or deception
- Understand the impact your behavior has had on your partner
- Develop greater empathy
- Improve emotional and sexual intimacy
- Reduce isolation and shame
- Learn from men facing similar problems
- Develop a healthier and more intentional relationship with sexuality
You do not need to have all the answers before reaching out. PBH can help you decide if group therapy is right for you at this stage.
Meet Your Group Facilitator: Dr. James Olsen
Having specialized expertise is important when the problem is this complex.
Dr. James Olsen, JD, PhD, LMHC, SOTP, CSAT, CST-S, is CEO of Pacific Behavioral Healthcare and a distinguished sex therapist whose clinical work specializes in problematic and compulsive sexual behavior, pornography concerns, sexual health, betrayal, and relationship repair. He is a Washington State Licensed Mental Health Counselor, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist Supervisor, and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist.
His expertise extends considerably beyond any single treatment model. Dr. Olsen previously served on the Board of Directors of the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, where his PBH biography reports that he was one of the lead clinicians involved in developing training standards and credentialing for clinicians treating sexually compulsive behaviors.
His broad clinical experience shapes the groups he leads at PBH. Instead of assuming everyone’s behavior has the same cause, Dr. Olsen draws on his expertise in sexual health, problematic sexual behavior, relationships, and evidence-based therapy to help members understand their individual patterns and make meaningful changes.
Since sexual behavior problems often affect others, his work goes beyond just reducing behaviors. Accountability, empathy, healthy sexuality, intimacy, and repairing relationship damage are all central to the process.
What Makes PBH’s Approach Different?
We do not think you should have to choose between two extremes: being told that every problematic sexual behavior means you are an addict, or being told that the behavior and its consequences do not matter.
There is a better approach.
PBH takes loss of control seriously. We also take your partner’s pain seriously and expect accountability. At the same time, we know that human sexuality and sexual behavior are complex, and effective treatment starts by understanding each person, not by giving everyone the same explanation.
The objective isn’t simply to stop doing something.
It is to help you understand yourself better, make lasting changes, become more trustworthy in your relationships, develop healthier sexuality, and build a life that matches the person you want to be.
Join a PBH Men’s Sex & Porn Addiction Therapy Group
If pornography use, sexual behavior, or secrecy is hurting your life or relationship, you do not have to face it alone.
PBH currently offers three confidential online men’s groups led by Dr. James Olsen:
Tuesday: 11:30 AM–1:30 PM
Friday: 12:00–2:00 PM
Friday: 2:00–4:00 PM
Contact Pacific Behavioral Healthcare to learn about current openings and speak with our team about whether one of the groups may be a good fit for you.