Transcript
A (0:00)
Welcome to the Thriving With Addiction podcast where we explore how recovery is not just about surviving, but about truly living. Each week we'll dive into the science stories and strategies that help people and families heal from addiction and build healthier, more resilient lives. I'm your host, Dr. John Avery. Let's get started. I'm John Avery and welcome back to Thriving with Addiction. Today I'm joined by Dr. Ken Rosenberg. Dr. Rosenberg is a general and addiction psychiatrist in Manhattan specializing in sexual compulsivity and is the co editor of the text Behavioral Addictions. He's the author of two books for the Infidelity why Men and Women Cheat and Bedlam. Dr. Rosenberg teaches at Weill Cornell Medical center where he has been a voluntary faculty member for the past 40 years. And I'll add a beloved teacher to our addiction psychiatry fellows here. He is also a filmmaker recognized by Emmy, Columbia, DuPont and Peabody Awards and one of his films was shortlisted for an Oscar. He's the winner of the Exemplary Psychiatrist award of the national alliance for Mental Illness and the proud recipient of the AAAP Arts and Advocacy Award. Ken, welcome.
B (1:16)
Great to be here. Thank you for having me.
A (1:18)
No, of course. I valued your expertise for so long. As I mentioned, our fellows always want more time with you. They always learn so much and, you know, we just don't teach them a lot about sex addiction and behavioral addiction. So doctors and the general public are, are hungry for this information.
B (1:36)
Yes, I agree. I agree.
A (1:38)
So tell us a little bit about yourself and, and how you made your way to this unique specialty.
B (1:44)
So I train where you are at Cornell and my two best teachers were in addictions and in sexual disorders. Dr. Millman in addictions. Helen Singer Kaplan. Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan in sexual disorders. This was, they were teaching in the 80s and I was, I, I, I did my residency and then fellowship there into the 90s. And you know, I was just kind of really drawn to them and, and, and worked closely with them. Of course. I did a fellow in fellowship in addiction. And the one thing that my addiction teachers and my sexual disorders teachers agreed on was that there was no such thing as sex addiction because they had come up in a time when, you know, it was very puritanical. A lot of people were, you know, trying to liberate the population. And so the idea that there was this kind of sex addiction, they were afraid, I think, and rightly so. There will be misused to keep people down and, and to really keep up very old antiquated and oppressive ideas. So that was, that's fine. I learned a lot from them. But then in the late 90s, I got. Because of my specialties in sex and in addiction, I was referred people who were famous or infamous sex addicts. And they came and they said, I'm a sex addict. And, you know, I couldn't say as a psychiatrist, we don't believe in that. So I really had to learn about that. And one of the ways I learned is I went to a wonderful, wonderful man named Patrick Carnes, who's a PhD and is really kind of the godfather of sex addiction. He's a psychologist who taught in the Midwest, you know, far away from us, Cornell and all the Ivy League centers, servant. And he had quite a following and he had written some wonderful books. And I. I studied with him. I. I trained with him. I took courses with him. We became very, very close friends. And. And within a decade, we actually ended up teaching courses to psychiatrists who, as you say, Jonathan, were very, very hungry for that. We taught us like, a course at the American Psychiatric association on sex addiction. It was always sold out. So, you know, the point is that it was something that we, our profession, our psychiatry and addiction profession didn't believe in, but became apparent that people really do have these kinds of behavioral addictions to sex. The foods, the Internet, to gambling, of course. And that's how I kind of got into it.
