A New Take on Overcoming Pornography Use

I once had a client who told me that they had done everything, but that they still struggled with pornography use. They described how they had been to counseling, gone to 12-step meetings, talked with their church leaders and even friends and family. He described feeling completely stuck and lost at how to fix what he thought was a big problem in his life. When I asked him about what else he was involved in he didn’t say much. I asked if he were dating anyone or involved in sports or anything fun at school. He wasn’t. It seemed that he was putting his life on hold until he got rid of pornography. After speaking to him more it looked like he didn’t not feel worthy to enjoy anything because of the shame he felt because of his use.

At this point we had a lot of work to do. What I said to him next surprised him – I told him that I want him to do more of what he loves in life. I explored with him what he would be doing if he felt worthy to be happy and do fun things. I encouraged him to do these things whether he felt worthy or not. It was a difficult shift for him because he had bought into the traditional method of behavior change – which is to withhold something or to punish someone into changing. This doesn’t work.

As he started to engage in life he felt strange and as if he were saying that he was ok with his pornography use. I told him that he can still hate his pornography use, but that he still deserved to be happy. This gave him freedom to enjoy things again. Eventually, after a lot of hard work, he started to realize that his life did not have to be defined by his pornography use – that he could still enjoy life and be happy while trying to let go of something he didn’t want.

Many clients get to this point, but not without help.