Youth and Porn Resource KitCase Study 10.
Dinesh: ‘Struggling to cut down porn’
Dinesh (17 yrs) sees the school counsellor for anxiety and discloses that he watches a lot of porn to help de-stress. He thinks he’s become ‘addicted’ to porn as he can’t stop watching, despite numerous attempts, and it’s impacting his day-to-day life.
1: Validate and normalise
Validate and normalise Dinesh’s experience – many young regular porn users want to cut down their porn usage but struggle to do so.
2: Assess
The term ‘addiction’ is often used by young people to describe varying porn-related distress, including shame, anxiety, difficulty cutting down, or problematic porn usage – and each experience requires support.
To assess the degree of impact and determine whether specialised support is required, enquire about Dinesh’s porn usage patterns, its impact on his day-to-day life, and his attempts at cutting down on porn.
For potentially problematic porn usage, the online ISST and the PPCS assessment tools are helpful.
3: Build critical thinking and porn literacy
Discuss how cutting down on porn is similar to cutting down on or stopping other unwanted habits, and it involves strategies such as understanding triggers, developing new behavioural responses, self-compassion, drawing on existing strengths, and getting social support. Use questions such as:
- When do you find yourself watching porn (triggers, such as bored, sad, lonely, stressed)?
- What are alternate ways you can deal with these triggers (friends, TV, sport)?
- What has helped you give up habits before?
- Who are some safe people who can help support you?
See Resource 3.4: Problematic Porn usage for management of problematic porn usage.
4: Support and refer
Problematic porn usage (PPU) can be managed with self-directed online tools and apps, support from friends and/or family, or specialised support with a trained counsellor. See Resource 3.4: Problematic Porn usage for more tools and information.
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