When Porn Use Becomes a Problem
You don't need to hit rock bottom to seek help. It may be worth addressing if you notice:
Loss of Control
Repeated attempts to cut down that don't stick. Setting rules for yourself that you keep breaking.
Default Coping
Porn becomes your automatic response to stress, loneliness, boredom, or discomfort—not actual arousal.
Escalation
More time, more intensity, more tabs, more secrecy. Content that would have shocked you earlier now seems normal.
Sexual Functioning Changes
Reduced interest in partnered sex, arousal conditioning to specific stimuli, erectile difficulties, or performance anxiety.
Values Conflict
Increased shame, guilt, or feeling "split" from who you want to be. The gap between your behaviour and your values keeps growing.
Relationship Impact
Trust rupture, withdrawal, conflict, secrecy, disconnection. Your partner may or may not know, but the distance is real.
Work or Study Impairment
Fatigue, procrastination, attention fragmentation. Time and energy leaking away from your real priorities.
Risky Behaviour
Viewing at work, in public, or in situations where discovery would be catastrophic. The thrill of risk becomes part of the pattern.
The common thread is a reinforcing loop: stress, triggers, habits, and short-term relief that trains the brain to repeat the behaviour.
The Cycle We Treat
Most problematic porn use follows a predictable pattern. Understanding this cycle is the first step toward interrupting it:
Trigger
Stress, fatigue, rejection, boredom, conflict, late nights, devices in bed, or specific emotional states that reliably precede use.
Urge + Story
"Just for a minute." "I deserve this." "I can't settle otherwise." "I've already messed up anyway." The mind provides justification.
Behaviour
Viewing and associated behaviours. Often lasting longer than intended.
Short-Term Relief
Numbing, soothing, stimulation, temporary escape from whatever triggered it. The brain registers this as "solution."
After-Cost
Shame, secrecy, relationship tension, time loss, fatigue, reduced self-trust. The hangover that follows the relief.
Vulnerability Increases
More stress, lower mood, more avoidance, less confidence—which makes the next trigger more likely to lead to the same behaviour.
Therapy is about interrupting this loop at multiple points—not relying on white-knuckle resistance alone.
Why Willpower Alone Fails
Here's the inconvenient truth: willpower is a borrowing system, not a savings account. When you use willpower to resist, you're taking out a loan with interest. Eventually the debt comes due—usually when you're tired, stressed, or emotionally depleted. That's exactly when the craving hits hardest.
Effective treatment doesn't rely on having more willpower than your craving. It changes the conditions so you need less willpower in the first place—and gives you tools that work even when willpower is low.
What We Actually Do in Therapy
The approach is structured, practical, and based on what the research shows works.
Clear Formulation
Your specific triggers, the functions the behaviour serves, your relapse pattern, and what's maintaining the cycle. We need to understand your version of this before we can change it.
Crisis Tools That Work Under Pressure
Techniques that actually interrupt the urge when it's intense—not just when you're calm and motivated. Physiological interventions that change your state in the moment, because you can't think your way out of a craving that's already taken over.
Environment Design
Reducing high-risk situations through practical changes: device boundaries, sleep stabilisation, friction for access. Making the hard thing easier and the easy thing harder.
Cognitive Work on Permissive Beliefs
Addressing the thoughts that give permission: "I need this," "I can't cope otherwise," "I've already failed so why bother." These stories feel true in the moment but can be examined and challenged.
Addressing Shame—Because Shame Fuels the Cycle
Shame isn't a motivator; it's a relapse driver. The worse you feel about yourself, the more you need to escape, the more likely you are to turn to the very thing that caused the shame. Self-compassion isn't soft—it's strategic.
Building What Replaces It
Connection, meaning, recovery routines, sexual health goals. You can't just remove a behaviour—you need to fill the space it occupied with things that actually meet your needs.
Relapse Prevention
What to do after a slip so it doesn't become a spiral. Because setbacks are part of change—the question is whether you recover in hours or weeks.
If relationship trust is part of the picture, we can also work on disclosure planning, accountability structures, repair conversations, and rebuilding intimacy—in a way that reduces repeated injury and conflict.
Matching Intervention to Intensity
One size doesn't fit all—and the right technique at the wrong time is as unhelpful as the wrong technique entirely. Cravings are dynamic, shifting moment to moment. The intervention needs to match where you are right now:
Edgy But Manageable
Cognitive techniques work here. Challenging thoughts, reviewing values, perspective-taking. Your prefrontal cortex is still online.
At Risk
Emotional and behavioural tools. Changing your environment, interrupting the pattern, shifting your emotional state. Thinking alone isn't enough.
About to Act Out
Physiological interventions. Changing your body state directly because your cognitive capacity is compromised. This is where crisis protocols matter.
Part of the work is learning to read your own gradient—knowing where you are so you can deploy the right tool. Recovery isn't about never having urges; it's about moving more slowly up the gradient and having options at each level.
The goal isn't white-knuckle resistance. It's developing a toolkit that works at every intensity level—especially when willpower is depleted.
What Progress Looks Like
Change typically happens over weeks to months. The first 60 days tend to be hardest; 60-90 days is when new patterns start becoming automatic; by 90-120 days most people notice significant improvement.
You'll know therapy is working when you see:
- Fewer urges controlling your behaviour—they still arise, but they pass
- Less secrecy and less shame weighing on you
- Faster recovery after triggers—minutes or hours instead of days
- Improved self-trust and consistency between values and behaviour
- Better intimacy and relationship stability (when relevant)
- More time and energy returned to your real priorities
- Sexual responsiveness that's no longer dependent on escalating stimuli
About "Flatlines"
Some people experience a temporary period of reduced libido during recovery. This can be disconcerting if you don't expect it, but it's actually a positive sign—the brain recalibrating after overstimulation. It passes, and natural responsiveness returns.
A Note on Labels
Some people resonate with the word "addiction." Others find it unhelpful or pathologising. The clinical world uses various terms: the ICD-11 recognises "Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder" as an impulse-control condition rather than an addiction category.
What matters clinically is the pattern: loss of control, continued use despite negative consequences, distress, and functional impairment. If these apply, we can work on it—without forcing a label onto you.
I treat the problem, not the terminology.
Quick Self-Assessment
Rate how often each statement applied to you over the past six months. This takes about 5 minutes. Your responses are not saved or transmitted.
Component Breakdown
Important: This self-assessment is for informational purposes only. It identifies patterns that may warrant attention, not diagnoses. Many people use pornography without it being problematic. If you're concerned about your results, professional evaluation can help clarify what's happening.
Common Questions
Yes. People avoid seeking help because of embarrassment. Confidentiality is taken seriously, with standard legal exceptions around immediate safety. Your attendance and what we discuss stays between us.
No. The aim is psychological freedom and alignment with your own values—not moral policing. I'm not here to tell you what your values should be; I'm here to help you live consistently with them.
Not necessarily. Some people choose abstinence from pornography; others aim for controlled, non-compulsive use. We'll clarify your goals and what's realistic given your specific pattern. What matters is that use becomes a choice rather than a compulsion.
If appropriate, yes. We can work individually or include partner sessions focused on repair, communication, boundaries, and rebuilding trust. Sometimes the relationship work is as important as the individual work.
It varies by pattern severity and how entrenched the behaviour is. Many people see meaningful shifts within 8-12 sessions. Longer-standing patterns may require more work. We'll set clear markers so you can track what's changing.
These are common and treatable. When arousal becomes conditioned to specific stimuli (novelty, escalation, screen-based cues), it can affect responsiveness with real partners. This typically improves as the brain recalibrates—it's not permanent.
Yes. With a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, you can access Medicare rebates for up to 10 sessions per calendar year. Most private health funds also provide rebates depending on your level of cover.
Cammeray, on Sydney's Lower North Shore. Appointments are in-person. Easy access from the North Shore, Northern Beaches, and CBD.
Ready to Break the Pattern?
Confidential appointments in Cammeray. No lectures, no shame—just structured support for real change.
Enquire / BookIn crisis? If you're in immediate danger or at risk of harming yourself, please call 000. For urgent support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. This page is for information only and is not a substitute for emergency care.