Porn addiction may fulfil a destructive need - The Observer

An article in yesterday's Observer raises many questions about those who develop a severely destructive relationship with porn, and how they can be helped.

Psychotherapists at London's Portman Clinic have been dealing with compulsive sexual disorders for a very long time, often working with severely troubled clients. But the boom in internet sex since 1997 has taken them by surprise.

Clinical director Stanley Ruszczynski says that the number of patients who are either addicted or otherwise adversely affected by online porn and cybersex is 'phenomenal'.

There's something about the internet... I imagine that 20 years ago some chap somewhere was sitting there with a very strange perversion that he probably thought he had all to himself. But then he gets on the internet and finds there are 33 sites where other people are doing something similar. So suddenly something that was quite contained is automatically normalised. I think this is a real issue.

I'm particularly intrigued by this comment from Heather Wood, psychotherapist and chief of research at the Portman, about compulsive porn seekers:

There's a part of them that feels bad about themselves, and they may feel a need to do something that makes them feel worse.' She finds another addictive analogy, with gambling. 'You might think that a gambler is trying to win, but sometimes what emerges in the course of therapy is that the gambler is hooked on losing. There's some sort of masochistic gratification in leaving themselves impoverished and empty-handed. Something similar can happen with pornography; sometimes it's about compounding a feeling of self-disgust.

The whole article really is a fascinating read.