Pornography addicition treatment available
Utah State is conducting a research experiment to treat pornography addiction and has been doing so at an 87 percent success rate for about a year, said Michael Twohig, psychology professor.
Rather than do research about what causes the addiction, USU researchers have been focusing on how to treat the addiction, Twohig said.
Jesse Crosby, a Ph.D. student that is working on the project, said they take a behavior that people do not like, and get it under control.
The treatment is free, confidential and growing in popularity, Crosby said. There are student applicants, members of the community and some even travel from other cities to receive treatment, he said. Rather than try to focus on defining the problem, the clients get to decide that it is a problem and help make the goals, he said.
There is no 12-step program and the clients decide what the goals are, whether they want to stop viewing pornography altogether or just limit their viewing and get it under control, Crosby said.
He said the key is the act of understanding the difference and then deciding to act or not to act on those thoughts, and that is where most of the treatment takes place.
“You just don’t have control over when these thoughts happen, but we can control what we do about them,” Crosby said.
There is also a model of commitment that is used and that same model is used in many other aspects of research and treatment, Twohig said. In treating pornography, there is no medication, he said.
However, pornography addiction is not treated like many other addictions despite its widespread use across the country, Twohig said.
“I don’t even know where to get funding for this project,” Twohig said.
Twohig said the federal government sponsors several drug addiction groups and supports a variety of research projects, but pornography addiction does not receive the same support or funding.
Crosby said the project has been garnering national media attention and the findings were presented at an international conference in Chicago and another in Orlando. The results of the study have been published in several academic journals.
Pornography addiction is a difficult subject because it is socially unacceptable to speak about, Twohig said. But he said the use is widespread and Utah ranks first in the nation for online pornography purchases.
The study is an ongoing project and applicants are still being accepted. For information, call Crosby (435) 797-8803, or e-mail jesse.crosby@aggiemail.usu.edu.
–seth.bracken@aggiemail.usu.edu