On and Off The Spectrum
How do families react, respond and reorganize after receiving a potentially life altering physical or mental health diagnosis, either for themselves or for someone they love? Dr. Esther Hess and Dr. Ann Kirsch, two experienced and well-known psychotherapists offer strategies, guidance and realistic hope through some of the toughest times that families can face.
On and Off The Spectrum
Understanding and Treating Porn Addiction on the Internet - Part 1
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Drs. Hess and Kirsch discuss the timely and understandable disconcerting subject of internet porn addiction; it's origins, impact on individual and family life and course of treatment with leading expert in the field, Dr. Naomi Afriat. Tonight is the first part of a thoughtful two-part discussion which includes the challenges of treating this disorder within the neuro-divergent community.
Podcast Correction: The podcast identifies our guest as a doctor, but as noted above Naomi Afriat is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Apologies for any confusion caused by this.
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Composer / Writer / Author: ROSSANO GENTILI - SIAE IPI: 161539866
Hi, this is Dr. S.D. Hess. And I'm Dr. Ann Kirsch. And this is On and Off the Spectrum, the podcast. Tonight we have an incredibly important topic with probably one of the foremost experts in the field. Naomi, would you like me to? I refer to you as Dr. Naomi Lewis, but would you like your last name as well? Your married last name?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. So Lewis is my maiden name. Afriat is my married name.
SPEAKER_03Okay. All right. Thank you. So Dr. Afriat is going to be speaking tonight on uh addiction as it applies to pornographic material on the internet. And I think this is a pervasive problem. It's not a new problem, but I think it's come to people's attention in a rather uh recently. And um we have several questions. We'd like to get the conversation started about the whole experience. But maybe the first one is could you help us define your understanding of internet pornographic addiction?
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. First of all, thank you for having me. It's lovely to meet you, and it's lovely to be here. Our pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you guys for the work you're doing in the uh neurodivergent community as well. I hear there's a lot of work to be done. Okay, so my understanding of uh in so first of all, I just want to cover, I just want to put out there that um I do all types of sex addiction. So pornography addiction is one thing that falls under the umbrella of sex addiction. Um but it's not the only thing. I just want to kind of clarify that. Um so when we're talking about um internet-related um pornography addiction, um, we're talking about materials, you know, pornography, so moving images, videos, pictures. Um we could also be talking about sexting or chatting with people online. Um sometimes they're real people, sometimes they're not, sometimes it's AI, sometimes there's anime, which is also something that can be some people can be very into as well, because it's very lifelike, but it's not actually life, right? It's not actually real. Um so I would say just if you want to define it, if you want to define it as internet addiction, I would say if you're focusing just on the internet piece, I would say um pornography as moving images, so videos, um, clips, uh, pictures. And then I also would never just make sure not to forget the part where there's a sex thing piece as well, right? Interacting by a webcam with people that also kind of falls into that category. I think it's important to remember that as well, because people often forget that that exists too.
SPEAKER_03I mentioned that it's it's relatively newly acknowledged but pervasive. How pervasive would you say this problem is?
SPEAKER_01That's a really sad that sad question makes me really sad. It's very pervasive. And I think if you think about, you know, the last 10, 20 years with the internet becoming so much more prevalent in our lives, um, pornography came along with that. You know, when I was younger, you had to, if you wanted to watch pornography, you had to go to the corner store and buy a magazine and hide it under your bed. You know, it was it was a thing, right? Now, in the last 10, 20 years, you just have to turn on a computer that doesn't have a filter and you'll get whatever you need, the what, you know, the world's at your fingertips. So unfortunately, it's incredibly pervasive, much more pervasive than we think or that we realize. Um, I also just want to say that it that addiction, um, or pornography is or and addiction doesn't really have uh socioeconomic boundaries. So it really does spread, you know, run the gamut of every type of religion, pretty much, um, every type of level of religiosity within those religions. Um different types of people socioeconomically, you could have, you know, people who are higher on the socioeconomic ladder, lower on the soccer. Like it doesn't, it really doesn't, unfortunately, it doesn't differentiate. Um, I think it's important to realize that as well. In my training, um, it was always interesting to see the different, the kind of different um uh um uh representation representatives of different groups. It was really interesting for me to see that. Um I've seen people from many different faiths, um yeah, and I've spoken to many people.
SPEAKER_02Because I see children, teenagers, and everyone older. And like you said, 20 years ago, but more for me about 15 years ago. And when these young nine, 10, 11, 12 year olds, yes, the look on your face is the look that I try not to show when I'm speaking to someone, but uh but it is in me because it's it's heartbreaking. So what what age do you see that also so young?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I would say I these days I don't see kids anymore. I used to see kids many years ago. Um, and for very and I actually never saw kids within this um dealing with this issue. I was seeing kids way back when I was still, you know, when I was younger. But um generally when I see adults, you know, you take a social history, you take a sexual history, it always dates back. There's I I'm I'm trying to think if I've ever come across somebody where it really only started in early or late adulthood. There's very few people. Generally, it's the youngest I've seen, I think, is seven or eight, um, which is really young.
SPEAKER_02Um wow, that is really scary. That's young. I mean, did they find their parents, their fathers, their mothers? Is that how they got into it?
SPEAKER_01Usually. Usually, but not always. Sometimes they were exposed by somebody with malintent of some sort. Sometimes it's peers, like a friend might show something or find something, and it you know, it's interesting. I think one of the big problems, and I've actually just met with people to kind of talk about this and raise awareness around this. When parents don't talk to their children about sexuality in a healthy way, the children are gonna discover it elsewhere. And then there's gonna be all sorts of shame and negative connotations attached to that. And we have something called an arousal template. Are you familiar with it? So an arousal template basically is um, you know, how like when uh you know what you're familiar with imprinting, right? When a duck is born and the first animal it sees is a cow, it's gonna think the cow is its mother, ain't so the same kind of idea with imprinting. We all have kind of like a template, and our arousal template is our our first sexual experiences are oh arousal. They're burned into the into the template and you can't really remove them. And if your first sexual experience is something that's not healthy or wholesome and it doesn't come, isn't isn't a healthy intimate experience or healthy sexuality, you know, sexual experience, then that affects the way that you're going to look at intimacy later on in life, right? And that's gonna come back to haunt you later on.
SPEAKER_02And they are are out with friends, a girlfriend, usually if it's a girl, um, at that age, and in my experience. And and one girl says, Can I touch you? And she says, Okay, because she doesn't know if she wants to be touched or not. And it starts a whole thing rolling because once that happens, I mean, once that happens, you can't forget that it happened.
SPEAKER_03I I I think this speaks Naomi to uh a very important piece. What makes porn addiction so challenging to treat?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a good question. I do just want to kind of come back to just I just want to address um what Dr. Ann said a minute ago. Um so what you're veering into right now is sexual abuse or and exploration. And I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that with children within a certain small age range, uh, you know, if they're within uh one or two year age range of each other, right? It's not necessarily considered abuse and molestation. Um and often sometimes it's just um you know exploration. And I think it's important, you know, to kind of be aware of that. Um, but yes, sometimes if it's an older person caressing them or pushing them, yes, that can be problematic, and it then does follow them around for the rest of their lives. So I just want to kind of respond to that.
SPEAKER_02For all of our listeners, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Dr. Hess.
SPEAKER_03Um it's it's it's how do we yeah. I'm I'm just saying, I think I think the distinctions are important, but I think it does reflect on the uh challenges on treating internet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, for sure. So just now you asked me about treatment. Was that the question? Okay, so treatment is it's difficult. It's difficult. It's difficult. It's not an easy one to treat. You know, if you're if you're you know an alcoholic, right, then we could just tell you to not not drink any alcohol, right? Or if you're a drug addict, right? You know, we could just tell you don't drink any alcohol, don't fill that glass, don't walk into a bar, when you go to a wedding or a party, just don't do it. Drink coke, drink water, drink orange juice. I mean, it is possible to do that, right? When it comes to this, it's a bodily function and it's and it's a behavior that that that's part of the normal, healthy human experience. And we can't tell someone to forgo that for the rest of their lives. So figuring out how to incorporate that how to maintain their sexuality and hold on to that and create healthy intimacy while still kind of doing away with the bad parts or the unhealthy parts is the tricky part. So, I mean, if you want to know a short outline of how I how it out I would conceptualize treatment, I would say so you've another way of describing sex addiction is an intimacy disorder. So if you kind of look at it through that lens and you talk about emotional intimacy and physical intimacy, sometimes what we'll do is we'll kind of like try and do a reset. So we'll have them do 90 days without their addiction, um, whether that's uh real life people or whether that's porn or whatever it is, and they'll come up with a therapist with what that actually means for them, because again, that can mean different things to different people, right? And then we try to do a reset because also remember there's brain function involved, right? So your brain has all the uh endorphins and all the response, right? All the responses for the dopamine hits that come with the feeding of your addiction, right? So your brain's got to reset. So you need 90 days at least for that, just just for that piece, right? And then there's learning um, you know, what what was it that drew you to this in the first place? How did you end up here? What was the underlying uh what was the underlying feeling that you were seeking? Was it a self-soothing? Was it an escape? Was there a trauma that was related to it? So there's that work that needs to be done. Um so often what we'll do is we'll kind of try and do a reset. So if the if it's somebody who's let's say married or in a relationship, we'll have them separate. Um, not separate to get divorced, but separate, we call it a therapeutic separation, um, so that he can do the work that he needs to do, and she can do the work that she needs to do, whichever one is the addict and whichever one is the partner. I'm just talking right now on relationships, and if it's somebody who's not in a relationship, we would just say, you know, no sex and right, no dating for at least three or four months, or probably longer than that. Um, and then we try to have them do a reset because what we want them to do is rebuild and create a healthy relationship with sexuality and intimacy. That's the goal, right? Because really it's an unhealthy relationship. One way that one of my mentors or supervisors phrased it was the separation between love and lust.
SPEAKER_00Right?
SPEAKER_01In a healthy relationship, there's love and lust are kind of intertwined and they're together, right? You love the person and you lust for them and you lust for them and you love for them, and the two kind of feed each other. That's a that's how healthy intimacy should be, ideally, right? When you have a porn addiction, you've separated the two. And often it's very it's the lust piece, and the love piece doesn't always come into it. Now, if you have a sex and love addict, that's different because there it's more of an attention-seeking thing, and it's a little bit different, but in the classic form, um often that there is that, right? So if you kind of look at it from that perspective, what you want to do is reset and then have them recreate a healthy intimacy for themselves, try and understand what desire and attraction needs to look like and what that should feel like, what they really want it to look like ideally, and then have them slowly start, if they're in a relationship, slowly start reconnecting with a partner in a healthier way, kind of like a reset. Um, and if they're not in a relationship, start reconnecting with sexuality and intimacy on their own, whether it's dating, whether it's on their own, figuring out. That's why you know essay groups are so important, especially for addicts, because that oftentimes it's because of loneliness and disconnection.
SPEAKER_03SA being a disconnection group.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, sex aholics anonymous, right? Right. So often there's a loneliness piece, right? So if they're going to a group that feeds that, that helps that a lot with the communication, the connection, that you know, with other people, having the support, being understood. Remember, also there's a large element of shame as well. So again, being in a group of people who are dealing with the same thing, it kind of takes that down a little bit. And then if you're working with a therapist, they can work on the a lot of the work I do is working on that shame as well, right? Because shame is really the part that inhibits sexuality, right?
SPEAKER_02If you're feeling, doesn't it? It's it's so good to hear you say that because I I found that working as a therapist with someone while they're in um a group is the best way that it works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because one you can't get the same responses as a person would anonymously in a group.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So I think it's very important what you're seeing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. The group piece is really, really important, especially because the support piece. And I've had addicts or and partners of addicts where they they'll do everything except for go into a group for various reasons, they're embarrassed, or there's, you know, they don't want to be seen. And it really shows in the work. I see it in the work, it really hampers the progress. I see it very clearly. It's you know, it's and even if they go virtual and only sometimes go in person, that's also worth a lot. You know, they can get themselves a sponsor, they can give do outreach calls if they're struggling, you know, that becomes part of their sobriety plan, right? It's a part of their the the plan of how they're going to get healthy again. So that's a really important piece. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Naomi, you're clearly an expert in this field, and I'm just curious, what was your training like to become to be an expert both in identifying and treating porn addiction?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so there's an organization called ITAP. Um don't remember, I don't remember what it stands for, International Institute for Trauma Addictions, maybe. I don't remember. But um, so they've done Dr. Patrick Kahn's is the kind of leader of uh all the research. You've heard of him, right? So he's done a lot of the research and a lot of the studies and all the he's come up with the um curricula around what it is somebody like me would need to know in order to treat this. So he's done a lot of the research in the background to understand how people struggling with this function, what it is that they need, etc. Um, and he has a lot of evidence, it's evidence-based, obviously. Um, so yeah, so basically ITAP has a training for a CSAT. So certified, so I'm a certified sex addiction therapist, a CSAT. Um and uh so it's I'm trying to remember, I think it's over the course of two or three years, and it's four modules of about a week each. Um, and then there's um supervision sessions that you have to attend just to make sure that you're doing it right and understanding things. And then one big part of that, just because you mentioned identifying it, one big part of that is uh assessments. They have quite a few, really, really, I think they're really great assessments, um, and then knowing to how to administer the assessments and how to read the results, because it's like a 30-page packet, the results, and then understanding what that means. Mostly people wouldn't know how to interpret that because there's a lot of different pieces to it. Um so yeah, there's um that, you know, that it takes a while. And then there's also in order to get certified, I think after you finish the trainings, there's still another, I don't know, 20 or 30 hours that you have to do. Um, it's a while back, I don't actually remember, but basically that's the it's it takes a while. It does take it's a commitment, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You you'd mentioned that um pornographic addiction has changed over the last several years just because of the access to the internet. And um, how would you guide parents who are you know hearing this and and perhaps shaking in their boots going, Well, I want to make sure that my kid is not, you know, doing something uh you know behind closed doors? And how do I know when it's as you said, normal exploration of uh you know the beginnings of puberty or you know the entrance into uh you know the uh the the devil's uh kingdom, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02And then when we were kids, we would play house. And and when I was a therapist, I would go out to different schools, parents were all assembled and they were hysterical because one kid was found with another kid, same sex or not, four-year-old children behind a shed on the on the playground where all the toys were kept. And they were horrified. And my basic job when I heard what it what people had to say was to remind them that this is a normal, calm, everyone calm down. This is a normal explanation. Did you play house with your friends when you with your friend, with your best friend, with this is a very normal thing. And what these children are doing is they're they want to see if they look the same. That's what they basically want to see. What they don't have any idea of at the age of three and four is other things that are more, you know, that are how the body reacts to being touched and all of those things. But the parents were absolutely some of them absolutely, absolutely sure that this was the beginning of the devil's door being opened. And so I would go back a number of times and go to the school and and observe what I and and the first thing, of course, I said was move the shed. It seems illogical.
SPEAKER_00Simple solution, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, simple solution.
SPEAKER_03But but I think this is really simple when you're a and the world is a complex, and there is either an accidental or reported discovery of a child or an adolescent who seems to be overly preoccupied with sexual content. Again, how do you guide parents?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I think it's important to remember that as we said before, it is to a certain extent developmentally, they want to know that everyone else looks the way they do, and it's just exploration and it's not necessarily sexual. I think when it gets when the kids are a little bit older and they become aware that the body responds to certain stimuli, that's when it becomes a little tricky. But I think that parents, I think it really depends on the age, but parents can tell their children, like, oh, we don't do that, you know, that's that that's not okay, right? Or even I think very important not to shame the children while still kind of sharing the that that's private, right? And differentiating between private and secret, right? Private is a positive thing, that's a dignified thing, private, right? And then secret has this negative kind of bad, shameful kind of connotation. And it's really important to explain, you know, you can look at your, if you want to look at your parts, you can go into the bathroom and do that, and that's okay if you close the door, but you can't do that when your friend is over and playing with you, right? And I think for a four-year-old or a five-year-old, that can be okay. I think when the kids get older, um kids can be told, you know, this is if you want to do that, you can do that in your bedroom by yourself. Sometimes people, sometimes it feels good to do that. If you want to do that by yourself, you can. Do you know what I mean? Like I think it's important, like it's a normal part of exploration. You can't sit there shaming them. Because remember, if we start attaching shame to sexual exploration or bodily exploration, we're going to be messing with that template again, and you don't really want to do that. Um, so making them feel bad or shamed about it is really not guilty or, you know, it's also, first of all, it's not going to stop the behavior. It might temporarily, but not for a very long time. And also it's not going to be helpful for them in the long term. And I think for them to understand that this is normal, just like we eat and just like we do this, and we go to the bathroom, we close the door, and there's things that we do in the bedroom, and things we do in the kitchen, things we do in the living room, right? There's certain things that we only do by ourselves in the bedroom under the covers if that's what you want to do.
SPEAKER_02I love it. Do you know what I mean? Like it's you sound like me, so I love what you're saying. This is exactly what I've told parents. There are private things and there are public things. It's what I've told my own children. And they never argued about it because what they wanted was permission to do what they were gonna do and not feel like they were gonna get. So it's the message that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_03So I'm going to go to the next level of concern. And let's say the parent, it's beyond normal exploration, and a parent is beginning to suspect that this is now a preoccupation.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Are you looking for sexual therapists like yourself? S A, and you're saying should you reach out? What would you uh advise? A parent is saying, you know, I have a child who is choosing to stay in on, seems to be very preoccupied with being um on the internet all day long. Because uh and and I'm that's ten steps over. Yes, right. I'm sorry, you know, and what's the what's the guidance? Where should like for example, one of my questions was was um thinking about for example, when should parents be worried that we're moving into a situation that this is a lack of sobriety, or you know, this is like we're now in in a in a problematic yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So you're saying, you know, when it might be heading towards an addiction kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, we there are different criteria that we use to kind of assess for addiction, right? So how problematic is it? Is it interfering with their daily functioning? Are they not going, are they not spending time with friends because they prefer to stay home on their own? Right? Are they um do they care? Does it bother them or are they not? Are they fine with it? Right? That's there's a difference there. I don't know if one is less or more problematic than the other, but I think it's important to differentiate, right? If they don't have a problem with it, but it's everyone else around them that has a problem with it, that that changes the way that I would be talking to them about it. Right. That's so good. Yeah, I mean, I think there's there's there's different right, there's different pieces to how we look at, right? So also function, like why do you do it, right? What does it do for you, right? And I think it's important for us because this is a this is a podcast. I know that you guys talk mostly about the neurodivergent community and the autism spectrum community. I think it's important in that particular um uh arena to talk about um the function, right? People who are neurotypical. Um, it might be self-soothing, it might be an escape, it could be a lot of different things, right? I think very often in the neurodivergent community, um, it could be self-soothing much more often more of a self-soothing, a predictable interpersonal sexual experience that they might not be able to have elsewhere because they might have social limitations. Um, there's there's a lot of different, I would want to know, I mean, I would say to a parent, I would say bring them either to me or to somebody else like me. I would say have bring them in and have somebody have a chat with them in a in a very gentle, non-confrontational and non-judgmental way, um, just to kind of understand what's happening for you. You know what I mean? Do you do it when you're upset? Do you do it when you're tired? Do you need it to fall to sleep? Um, you know, why how upsetting is this to you? Do you mind that you're doing it? Are you happy to be doing it? What's the harm, right? All these kind of different um pieces, like can you control yourself? Can you stop? Right? Can you stop if you wanted to? Or like a lot of people say they can, but then when they do, they get very irritable or they get very out of sorts because they're having withdrawal systems, basically, right? Um so I think it's, you know, I think if you're asking me what should a parent do, I think um I would get hold of someone. I would I don't know if I would, you know, you could start with a sex therapist just to kind of understand what it is, but if you think it's heading towards an addiction, I would definitely get hold of an addiction, a sex addiction therapist. Um I think it's very important to differentiate between the two as well. There is a difference, right? Sex sex therapies to improve sexual functioning, sex addiction is to deal with the addiction piece, right?
SPEAKER_03The unwanted I appreciate I appreciate that. I also, you know, the podcast is called On and Off the Spectrum. We deal with certainly the neurodivergent community and and other and and there's a lot of different families and and situations that we have addressed and continue to address. But I agree with you because in my population, which is predominantly the neurodivergent, you will see a a high percentage of of addiction to to internet porn. And I think it is exactly as you speak about. It there's a lot of it is um it's an area of comfort because they're they have lived most of their lives in real or perceived rejection, and the internet does not reject them. It is feels good, it's reinforced kind of pretty continuous basis and makes it difficult. And you know, it makes it difficult and without a question, especially in the higher function community, there's a le there's a tremendous level of shame that goes with it. So I'm I'm I appreciate that. Yeah, you said you said um another piece then which I think is important about the nine days, uh at the very least of sobriety. Can you can you help us understand also for our listening audience, our viewership, um the difference between sobriety and recovery when it comes to power?
SPEAKER_01I love that question. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things. So have you are you familiar with the term white knuckling when it comes to addiction?
SPEAKER_03Can you share share that with our audience?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So imagine if you're um, you know, falling off the edge of a cliff and you're holding on real, real tight, and you're holding on for day life trying really hard not to fall off, and your knuckles are gonna go white for holding on so tight, right? So just imagine that, you know, metaphorically, you're you're you're the bandwagon of sobriety, right? You're just holding on tight, trying not to fall off. So I think that when I talk about sobriety, I talk about refraining from unwanted behavior, right? So refraining from the addiction behavior. In this case, we're talking about sex addiction, but it could be any, you know, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could be shopping, it could be gambling, it could be, you know, anything. Um recovery is really the process of healing the parts of you that are broken. Those are the parts of you that led you to where you are today in the addiction. So that's a much more comprehensive, a much deeper uh process. And it really can help, and I've seen people really be transformed through the process if they really take it seriously and are able to kind of humble themselves and acknowledge, hey, I have a problem. I really need to kind of, you know, acknowledge that I have a problem and start working on this and take care of it and really dig down deep and find out why I ended up in this place. And I mean, I've seen individuals who've really kind of gone into recovery and are just these incredible people. They develop debt, they've processed some of their childhood trauma and gained so much more understanding of themselves and much more acceptance of self and their own limitations, which brings them to being acceptance of other people's limitations as well, right? And and I think with also when they're in a when they're in a relationship, it can really because we try to reset the relationship, it can really enhance it and create. I talk to my patients often about marriage 1.0 that you, you know, had when you got married, and then marriage 2.0 that maybe if you're lucky, you'll have if both of you engage in the work that needs to be done to uh you know to move forward. And some people go off and you know, five years down the line, they're in a marriage or a relationship or on their own, but they're just very it's a totally different quality of life. So that to me, recovery is a ri can be a really powerful, beautiful thing. Uh sobriety is very nice. I'm not gonna knock it, it's great, but it's not gonna get you as far. Do you know what I mean? So it's not the same.
SPEAKER_03So ultimately the goal is to move beyond sobriety into this place of new beginnings, which hopefully is in the context of recovery. That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02People don't realize what they're what they don't know. No, yeah. So with the therapist, they start to learn about the things they don't know in a non-judgmental way. And that is where growth happens. Absolutely. You mean you can do it this way, you mean you can do it? I didn't know you could do it. Yeah. Whatever the it is. Yeah, we're talking about wide variety also.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I have to say this, we are only scratching the surface of an incredibly complex problem. And as I think as technology um becomes more and more obvious in our everyday lives. Um, I also think, by the way, which we didn't even mention, I think COVID uh probably did a you know a real uh uptick in in uh addiction in general, particularly when it came to internet chronological and and to sexuality.
SPEAKER_02I mean, just you know, we're not using words, but children uh masturbate. They do it from a very young age. They do it and and they do it the rest of their lives, many people. And so I I remember a boy that I have had worked with since he was a very young boy, and he said to me during COVID, he hated having to work online, as many kids did. And I said to him, Well, what happened? I said, Well, what makes it easier for you? No, with no forethought. And he said, Well, I don't know if I can tell you. And I said, I've known you since you were four. You can't tell me, that sounds scary to me. And he said, No, I can tell you. And then he told me relieving just what you said, relieving anxiety, relieving stress, relieving those emotions that were uncomfortable that he didn't know how to relieve in another way. I said to him, I'm so glad you told me. I'm so proud of you, because now we can talk about this in a way that it will work better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Ways to relieve stress will work better.
SPEAKER_03I think I think that what you did is exactly what we're saying, not shame. That's right, embrace. But this is such a complex conversation. And I would like to invite you, Naomi, back for another session if you're interested, because I think we're gonna have many questions from our viewership about this particular issue, um, and and you know, what are the next steps if people do want to seek help or if they suspect uh a loved one, a partner, a child, uh husband, a parent, uh, you know, something is is in a a um a less and healthy place with in the with internet addiction, with pornographic internet addiction. So uh I hope we can have this conversation expand.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_03And uh but I want to thank you again for joining us because I think this is an absolute necessary topic to address. Um and I think that as uh we move further into uh the 21st century, I think as and life gets continues to be more complex, we are dealing with these kinds of uh very thorny issues, and thank goodness for persons like yourself who are available to support and give uh you know give answers to the most complex of it.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. You're very welcome. Yeah, and there's definitely a lot of different things that we can talk about. I think especially with relation to the neurodivergent community as well, I think it's important to kind of have some clarity on that as well. Um, but yeah, definitely I'm happy to I'm happy to do that. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02We'll find we'll see what kind of responses we get and questions we get. Sure. If you could think about the things that we have not addressed and make a little list and then send it off to us, and then you know, yeah, another few couple months, uh um, whenever it's it's easier for you, you know. We all have such busy schedules, but this is something that we've prioritized. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We'd love to hear that from you as the experts.
SPEAKER_03Sure. And and with that in mind, so to our viewership, um I am I'm Dr. S. D. Hess.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I'm Dr. Ann Kirsch. And we want to hear from you about what we discussed today. We want to hear about any other issues that you may have, that questions you have for us. And we also want to know if you feel like you have something that you can offer so that you can be on our show also. So please get in touch with us. Please let us know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_03And in the meantime, don't forget to follow us and subscribe to On and Off the Spectrum Podcast. Naomi, uh, Dr. I'm going to Dr. Africa. Africa, I'm going to do that.
SPEAKER_00If I turn the name, it's okay.
SPEAKER_03Your last name, my apologies. But thank you again for uh being really uh a catalyst to have this discussion piece that we really all clinically need to have, and certainly as a wider community, we need to address. So it's a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I think you're someone that people could talk with easily, and that makes us come very comfortable.
SPEAKER_00So thank you. Good. I'm glad. You're so very welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Take care.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
