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It's not exactly a recipe for domestic bliss.

First, actor David Duchovny announced last week that he was entering a rehab centre for sex addiction. Now his wife, actor Téa Leoni, who hasn't had a hit film in years, has reportedly bailed on this week's Toronto International Film Festival, where she was to promote the movie Ghost Town, to avoid awkward questions about her husband's sex habits.

But Mr. Duchovny's news also highlights another rift, one that's simmering among therapists and psychiatrists over the subject of "sex addiction" - and whether it even exists.

On one side are experts who say people can be addicted to sex or pornography, just like alcohol or cocaine. To curb the compulsion, some therapists treat the condition with programs such as Sexaholics Anonymous.

"I think everyone has known someone with a sex addiction," says Doris Vincent, a psychologist with Edmonton's Recovery Path Counselling Services, which offers 12-step programs for sex addicts and their partners.

She defines sexual addiction as "sexual behaviour that you cannot control despite negative consequences," including addictions to pornography, masturbation or massage parlours.

But others say diagnosis of the condition is a pseudoscience.

"I don't believe in sex addiction," says David McKenzie, a Vancouver sex therapist who is among those who say the term "addiction" is misleading.

They are backed by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the clinical bible for psychiatrists and psychologists in Canada and the United States. Sexual addiction is not included in the manual's list of recognized conditions.

"It's not in there because so-called sex addiction doesn't follow the usual characteristics of what we think an addiction is," said Paul Fedoroff, a psychiatrist and head of the Sexual Behaviours Clinic at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.

Those characteristics include dependence on an external substance, an increasing tolerance for that substance, and withdrawal when it's removed, he said.

"If we start talking about sex addiction, we also have to talk about addiction to [other behaviours] like sleep, or eating, or breathing," Dr. Fedoroff said.

As well, it's difficult to define what is too much sex.

"When I hear that someone has a sex addiction I never know how strong their sex drive is. I also don't know how much sex they're having," he said. "I think it's more useful to talk about sexual preoccupation." Dr. Fedoroff says most patients are treated through individual counselling.

Still, no matter what you call it, experts agree that sex can play havoc with some people's lives if it becomes an obsession. People who say they are addicted to sex or pornography are more likely to be depressed or to have substance-abuse problems, Dr. Federoff says.

Ms. Vincent, who has counselled hundreds of people in the past 10 years for sex addiction, the vast majority of them men, says families also suffer.

"The wife is leaving and the children don't want to talk to them. ... I think that's the worst combination," she said.

People who enter Ms. Vincent's program have weekly counselling sessions and enter 12-step programs. Some people may require periods of abstinence from sex, or the removal of Internet access.

Ms. Vincent was certified by Patrick Carnes, a U.S. psychiatrist who pioneered the Certified Sex Addiction Therapist program and the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals, which defines sexual addiction as sexually related compulsive behaviour that interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on a person's family, friends, loved ones and work environment.

Only a small minority of people will have serious problems with sex, Dr. McKenzie said.

Mr. Duchovny - who has been married for 11 years to Ms. Leoni, with whom he has a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son - should be treated with compassion, he said.

"It may well be that he has a sexual compulsivity that needs to be treated," he said. "It can destroy your life. ... But I want to distinguish those people, who are a very small minority, from the person who likes to masturbate every day, or from the person who likes to have sex with his wife twice a day. That's not a sexual addiction."

Extramarital snares

MICHAEL DOUGLAS

Labelled a sex addict by ex-wife Diandra Douglas in the early 1990s after a very messy public divorce, Mr. Douglas sought treatment in a Los Angeles clinic and now calls himself a "recovering sex addict." To keep himself in line, Mr. Douglas has reportedly agreed to pay a $5-million (U.S.) "straying fee" to current wife Catherine Zeta-Jones if caught in an extramarital snare.BILLY BOB THORNTON

When Mr. Thornton and Angelina Jolie split, British tabloid the Daily Star reported the actor cheated on his wife with his sex therapist. According to the newspaper, Ms. Jolie ordered Mr. Thornton to seek therapy after he reportedly slept with a raft of groupies and household staff.ERIC BENÉT

Halle Berry's estranged husband checked himself into an Arizona rehab centre to treat a sex addiction in 2002, two years before their tumultuous split. Mr. Benét later denied having a problem, saying he was a "person who ... through a series of emotional events, troubles, challenges, made some really, really stupid, painful mistakes."