Okay. Tell me a little bit about the Carnes Task number 6, ensuring physical health and integrity?
Speaker 2: In that task, we’re really focusing on their physical health. We encourage them to go to their primaries, get tested for all STDs, really try to get in touch with taking care of their physical body, exercising. A lot of times in early recovery a lot of symptoms can come up also. Insomnia, itchiness, dizziness, restlessness, depression. We treat those as they come and if they need to be referred to a psychologist, to have appropriate medication, that would be done there. In that stage is also where we are exploring their arousal template. That’s a big piece in sex addition. The arousal template is usually formed by the time a child is between 5 or 7. The arousal template is where the fantasies begin. A lot of time, if these are fused with anything negative that happened to them in childhood, then it’s really about understanding that. Not always, but there are times where if a child is masturbating and mom or dad walk in and freak out or say, “That’s bad”; or
“What are you doing?”;. The body is feeling aroused at that time, but at the same time they are getting the message of “That’s bad”; They say, “What fires
together, wires together.”; That’s what happens. In this stage we’re really looking back at childhood fantasies and what their arousal template is.