Hypersexuality and Sexual Offending

Michal Lew-Starowicz

When the concept of Hypersexual Disorder (Kafka, 2010) was rejected by the American Psychiatric Association from DSM-5, one of the pronounced legal concerns was the risk of misapplication of the diagnosis as mitigating factor in cases of sexual violence or use of illicit pornographic content. More recently, when Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder was introduced as a new diagnostic entity to the ICD-11, a possible co-occurence with paraphilic disorder has been acknowledged (WHO, 2022). The aim of this presentation is to discuss partially overlaping concepts of CSBD and paraphilic disorders, their comorbidity, diagnostic and treatment challenges especially in cases of actual or at-risk-of sexual offending.  

Michal Lew Starowicz MD, PhD, FECSM is an Associate Professor and a Head of Department of Psychiatry at the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education in Warsaw, Poland as well as Director of the Bielanski Mental Health Centre (Warsaw, Poland). He is a Vice President of the Polish Sexological Society and Executive Committee Member of the European Society for Sexual Medicine. Engaged in inderdisciplinary studies on mental health and sexuality, especially research on Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder. Author and co-author of >100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.