Could Tiger Wood's Hypersexual Disorder Have Been Prevented By Spending Time with his Children?
By Barbara Lock, MDJanuary 25, 2010
Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods' long suffering wife, is reportedly postponing a decision on divorce until after Woods completes rehab for sexual addiction, according to US magazine.
There is a new term for Tiger Wood's behavior, a term that comes with a full definition being proposed for the DSM-V: Hypersexual Disorder. The term defines a unique type of person: one who has a disorder of high sexual desire coupled with stong components of impulsivity, compulsivity, and addiction. The term hypersexual disorder is not intended to encompass paraphilias such as sexual fantasy or behavior focusing on inanimate objects, suffering or humiliation, children, or nonconsensual sexual activity.
Drug treatment for hypersexual disorder generally includes medications that reduce sexual desire, including serotonin and/or prolactin, according to Guay et al. The addition of cognitive/behavior therapy is considered a requirement.
One of the easiest and surely the most natural way for a man to increase his prolactin level is to spend some time with his children. This was surely difficult for Tiger as he traveled the world as golf's greatest player, and is perhaps even more difficult now that his marriage is at risk. But men who spend time with their children have higher prolactin levels than single childless men, according to Gray et al.
How a man reacts to the cries of his infant child also predicts levels of prolactin, according to Flemming et al. In an experimental setting, fathers who became alert and had a positive response to the recorded cry of an infant had higher levels of prolactin and lower levels of testosterone than those who had a negative response.
But Tiger, the world's greatest golfer, was surely was protected from the sleep disruption that comes with a crying infant by long hallways, nannies, his mother, or a road trip. It's too bad, because his children could have changed his chemistry.
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