Well, it has to be the ultimate way to get the brain addicted to something, doesn’t it?
You stare at a screen with a wide variety of images. You get a very real, physical feeling attached to it, what’s more that is a highly pleasuarable feeling. Flashing lights. Your brain fantasizing. Sounds of all kinds. A certain element of naughtiness and being safe in your own private place while having this experience.
That is some hypnosis… And that is why so many people are becoming addicted to pornography and why they are finding it more and more difficult to break from regular viewing of pornography.
I watched the Channel 4 documentary Addicted to Porn last night and it was fascinating.
The argument in the documentary was that since hard porn was “effectively legalised” in 2000 — pornography has become an epidemic. “The swelling body of opinion,” claimed the narrator, whose turn of phrase could have been better, “is that for many men it is an uncontrollable addiction.”
Among the chaps featuring in the documentary was a 30-something-year-old salesman who watched 40 hours of porn a week and was attempting to go 7 days without it. He was a low-tech addict. Four million may view computer porn, but this guy relied on video cassettes, and became aroused simply unwrapping them.
As so many porn addicts discover, this guy found actual sex a bit of a let-down. He preferred the real thing — pornography. It shows how powerful a sex organ your brain really is, doesn’t it?
Thanks to his addiction he was unable to sustain real relationships and lacked the mental space to concentrate on his career.
The reason I highlight this particular male was because a hypnotherapist regressed him and diagnosed low self-esteem and another professional doubted there would be a quick fix. Three months on, this guy had stopped the hypnotherapy but not the porn.
I say it to all my clients — however much a great hypnotherapist you may think you are, the most powerful influence in your life is you — and if your brain is getting multi-sensory hypnotic pornography pumped into it every day, then what chance does one session a week with a therapist have?
The documentary also featured Mary Anne Layden, an expertwitness from Pennsylvania University, she suggested porn was one of the worst addictions, for it was not possible to go cold turkey with it, its images being unshiftably lodged in the user’s brain.
I found this very interesting — she as basically describing the hypnotic process as if from a text book…
Worryingly though, every case of sexual violence she had studied had involved porn, she said, a claim horrifically illustrated by the case of Jane Longhurst, murdered by the dreadful Graham Coutts, who got his thrills from asphyxiation and would visit Jane’s decomposing body in his self-storage lockup after first visiting his favourite website.
do not want to get embroiled in disucssions for other people — that of whether pornography creates criminals and so on…
By the end of the documentary, even if you are not in the field of hypnosis, you could see plainly the hypnotic effect that pornography was having on those featuring in this documentary.
Interesting. So, have you ever worked with clients with porn addictions? And if so, can you share your protocols and reults? Do you even think it’s a real issue, or is it simply a symptom of a deeper one (like the guy with the low self esteem)?
I sometimes wonder if “porn addiction” is really just a product of a sexually repressed society. Kind of like how alcoholism is far lower in parts of the world where there is no legal drinking age, and where alchohol has no social judgment.
I have worked with lots of men for overcoming porn addiction. It is very difficult to work with indeed.
This is a prime example of everyone being unique and having unique ways of being dealt with. I don’t like to suggest that what they are doing is wrong – because I do not personally believe there is anything wrong at all with viewing pornography.
If it is affecting the individual or their life detrimentally, then it needs to be worked on. Lots of therapists work on the individuals values and I believe this makes them feel that what they are doing is wrong and further represses them – we start going to Victorian values and orthodox early century Catholic schools if we breed that kind of thought process!
I often do a session that works on core values. The individual meets two versions of himself- ‘the man you were when you felt addicted to porn’ and ‘the man you are with the character and values and respect when you are free from porn.’ Very similar to altering perceptual positions. Looking at the addicted self from the outside to gain perspective into the behaviors and values, and then looking at the healthy self to create perspective about what is truly important. You can then objectively look at the values and beliefs that create addiction or freedom.
Of course, I sometimes use Timeline for the guy to experience two timelines of his future. The unconscious mind projects the feelings, thoughts, and values in your two futures. One timeline is based on the current behavior and the other is based on the success, freedom from porn, and living a life you love and are proud of. A slightly altered way of doing a Dickens Pattern. Read my article on ‘Using Self-Hypnosis To Be The Ghost of Christmas Future’ in the articles section of this site to get an idea of how to do that technique for yourself…
Creating a positive response to help the individual be free from the habitual behavior by installing anchors is something else I’ll possibly do. The man then has an anchor that creates freedom and choice, and allows him to easily walk away from his computer, ignore porn when it is presented, and instantly strengthen his resolve. You also want to remove certain anchors that keep the individual stuck in the adiction…There are many associations that make the brain start the process of needing to use porn to find the next high. Many things in the surroundings may have powerful associations that take them down that road. It is good to help disconnect from the emotions that are anchored to objects, such as a computer, that used to make the mind and body compelled to continue.
I also work on belief change, the process that takes old programming and the automatic responses the chap had, and replaces it with a new automatic response – I do this with a swish pattern, though I also give written homework for dealing with this afterwards.
Every hypnotist needs to know how to effectively use direct suggestion to promote the way the mind seeks out real relationships, real intimacy and share the energy of the powerful connection during real sex. This is sometimes absent with porn addicts.
I have helped some to release the past. Mainly because lots of men have guilt, anger, old associations and emotions that are making them turn to porn, these may need to be released. Lots of people find healing and release for many other emotional conflicts so that they can have a more stable emotional state, feel a sense of balance and learn the positive lesson from past mistakes.
I also point out ow to use their own internal dialogue to help set them free and if they have some deep issues that create confusion about their sex life, or had conflicts in the past about sex and would like to bring it back into balance, I work on that too.
We do live in sexually repressed times, but we also live in sexually free times – the sex trade never had it so big, we spend millions on it…. There is much confused ambivalence toward it.
If anyone else wants to know how to really get people free from porn addiction – register for my hypnotherapy diploma course. 🙂
https://www.adam-eason.com/seminars/hypnotherapy-training-diploma/
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Aw shucks, thank you for that deep, hear felt comment, that means a lot to me… 🙂