Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 41, Issue 3, September 2010, Pages 285-295
Behavior Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Treatment for Problematic Internet Pornography Viewing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2009.06.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of problematic Internet pornography viewing and the breadth of intervention approaches to potentially address it, no studies to address this problem have been reported to date. An emerging treatment approach, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), holds promise as a treatment for Internet pornography viewing because of its focus on processes hypothesized to underlie this maladaptive behavior. In the first experiment on the treatment of problematic Internet pornography viewing, 6 adult males who reported that their Internet pornography viewing was affecting their quality of life were treated in eight 1.5-hour sessions of ACT for problematic pornography viewing. The effects of the intervention were assessed in a multiple-baseline-across-participants design with time viewing pornography as the dependent variable. Treatment resulted in an 85% reduction in viewing at posttreatment with results being maintained at 3-month follow-up (83% reduction). Increases were seen on measures of quality of life, and reductions were seen on measures of OCD and scrupulosity. Weekly measures of ACT-consistent processes showed reductions that corresponded with reductions in viewing. Large reductions were seen on a measure of psychological flexibility, and minor reductions were seen on measures of thought-action fusion and thought control. Overall, results suggest the promise of ACT as a treatment for problematic Internet pornography viewing and the value of future randomized trials of this approach.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants included the first six adults who responded to an advertisement recruiting adults who had problems with “Internet pornography addiction.” Two additional individuals called reporting past struggles with viewing but no current viewing, and thus, they were not scheduled for intake sessions. No other participants were excluded. Participant 1 viewed exclusively at work, and he viewed heterosexual intercourse. Participant 2 was questioning his sexual orientation and viewed gay male

Discussion

Six adult males who were viewing Internet pornography at problematic rates (as determined by the participants) and experienced their viewing was limiting quality of life participated in a treatment outcome study. The effect of eight individual 1.5-hour sessions of ACT for viewing was assessed in a multiple baseline across participants design. Self-monitoring of viewing showed that five of the six participants had notable reductions in their viewing as a result of treatment and that four of the

Author Note

This project was supported through a grant from Utah State University. The authors would like to thank Dr. Jonathan Bricker for his helpful comments on this manuscript.

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