MSI Press Blog

excerpt from  He's a Porn Addict...Now What?  by Tony Overbay and Joshua Shea Introduction This book is a unique collaboration between a mental health professional, Tony Overbay, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Joshua Shea, a former journalist who spent more than two decades struggling with pornography addiction. Usually, the expert sitting in the chair and the person on the couch getting the help don’t work together on a project outside of the therapist’s office, but we think this is a natural match. (And for those wondering, Josh was never Tony’s client—they met on a podcast.) Tony spends dozens of hours every week working with couples who are at various stages of the therapy process. Many of these couples have struggled with pornography issues. Although you’re probably feeling alone in the world right now, you are not. Tony has dealt with women, men and couples who are going through exactly what you are experiencing. Josh was a pillar of his community whe...

  In 1980, I fell down a flight of stairs. The day started out normally enough. Breakfast over, Donnie departed for work, and school lunches prepared, the kids and I were ready to take on the day, as usual. Lizzie had skipped off to her fourth grade class a few blocks from home. Three-year-old Noelle, dressed in a pretty pink dress and her blond hair tied up into two ponytails   with matching pink ribbons was tucked away in the back of our orange Pacer, where she could sit comfortably with her legs stretched out. (Those were days before the invention of seat belts.) Two-year-old Shane was seated on the outside stairs, waiting for me to bring out Doah, in his carrier, along with his suction machine for his trach tube. Doah was on the sofa, next to his suction machine. Everything and everyone in place – except that Shane needed a pair of socks. I quickly scooted down the basement stairs in search of clean socks that should have been on top of the dryer. And the, oops, I slippe...

  It just happened. Not overnight. I just seemed like it. All the rainbow makers had lived -- and become adults. Now what? As we were to find out, the answer to that question was on us. We found out the Catch-22 of adult rare disease care. Pediatric teams were clearly trained and resourced for congenital complexity—but they discharged based on age, not need; typically, age 12. Sorry, Doah, they said, we just now have a diagnosis for you -- CHARGE Syndrome (a newly discovered syndrome), but you are a big boy now, about to be a teenager, so goodbye. At last, finally, we had a label, but no way ahead and no doctors. PCPs available in our area, of course, knew nothing about CHARGE, but they did their best to treat Doah, treating him like any other teenager and then young adults, and now aging adult. Adult systems, we learned, are siloed and symptom-focused, often lacking interdisciplinary coordination or rare disease literacy. Clinicians fear liability or “not knowing”, so th...