1. Failure to recognize the abuse. The first problem with traditional clinical models is that they don’t acknowledge the patterns of emotional, psychological, and relational abuse perpetrated on intimate partners and families of those with deceptive sexuality. Deceptive sexuality is indeed a particularly destructive form of intimate partner abuse and domestic abuse. Often, there are ongoing patterns of abuse that victims experience for years, and the consequences are significant. This type of abuse is psychological in nature, not physical. It is the covert psychological operation required to keep two realities separate, the upstairs of the metaphorical house, and the secret sexual basement downstairs, being kept separate through intentionally manipulating the reality (IMR) of the people upstairs. It is a psychological operation, that just like similar military operations, are designed to weaken and gain power over people, and hence a form of covert domination and control.
2. Failure to recognize the trauma. Traditional clinical models do not recognize or understand the trauma symptoms experienced by these partners and family members. Sadly, however, this type of trauma is pervasive, intensely distressing, and in need of timely and appropriate diagnosis and treatment. Traditional models have ignored these trauma-related symptoms, and few practitioners in the psychological field as a whole have a solid conceptualization of this type of trauma. Deceptive sexuality trauma, or DST, is a specified trauma-and stressor related disorder, which occurs when victims are subjected to ongoing patterns of Compulsive-Entitled Sexuality (CES) and Integrity-Abuse (IA) in the context of an intimate partnership or family system, which is diagnosed as a specified partner or spouse psychological abuse disorder, called deceptive sexuality. DSTT has identified and describes 22 traumatic injuries and symptoms based on grounded theory referred to as the DST-22, which informs clinical assessment, stabilization, and treatment for survivors.
3. Failure to recognize and support the victims. In addition to not recognizing the trauma, many clinical models lack consciousness about the victims of deceptive sexuality. There has been a profound neglect of the partners and families who are exposed to, and impacted by, these problems. Traditional treatment models have either excluded partners and family members from clinical consideration or, even more damaging, have tended to misdiagnose them. Some models rely on general couples or sex therapy approaches, while others still use victim-blaming interventions based on the traditional concepts of co-sex addiction and codependency. Partners are often “educated” that their responses and reactions are actually part of the relationship problem or are symptoms of a co-addiction that require treatment and management. Unfortunately, none of these approaches appropriately recognize, diagnose, or attempt to treat the abuse, victimization, and specified trauma-related symptoms.
4. Failure to identify a disorder. The field frequently uses terms such as sex addiction, compulsive sexual behavior, out of control sexual behavior, and impulse control problem, or infidelity. But these terms do not attempt to describe any type of abuse problem, sociopathic behavior patterns, or conduct disorder. The field has clearly failed to recognize the presence and impact of deceptive sexuality as a type of disorder. There is no established awareness of an integrity-abuse disorder as the cause of the abuse/trauma. And there are no notable efforts put towards recognizing the role of a systemic abuse problem in causing significant trauma-related symptoms.

This needs to change.