There is an emotional effect that a behavioral addiction, like addiction to pornography, can cause. Factors of excessive porn viewing or compulsive pornography can wreak havoc on families, relationships and can cause mental health conditions. Literature has proved that pornography viewing causes loss of control, impaired control, repetitive behaviors, compulsive behaviors and a decrease in sexual activity such as sexual intercourse.

According to the Kinsey Institute, in a national study, 14% of people reported having used a sexually explicit website ever. Additionally, 25% of men reported visiting a pornographic site in the previous 30 days; 4% of women reported visiting pornographic sites in the same timeframe.

Does pornography addiction cause mental disorders or do mental health issues cause pornography addiction? Sometimes, it’s hard to know. Everyone has very different life circumstances so the root cause of sex addiction,  masturbation or pornography addiction isn’t always obvious.

Things like anxiety, depression, childhood trauma or past abuse can play a role in how problematic pornography surfaces. Once the harmful effects of porn, negative consequences, and risky behaviors are uncovered it can take a while for the body and mind to learn how to get daily functioning back to baseline. 

Co-occurring Disorders or Dual Diagnosis 

A co-occurring disorder is when someone struggles with a mental health disorder as well as an illicit substance use disorder. So while technically if a compulsive porn user was struggling with a porn addiction or compulsive pornography as well as depression the literature wouldn’t classify this as a co-occurring disorder, the concept is the same and the way to go about treating the pornography addiction is also similar in that it is critical that compulsive porn users treat both; the pornography addiction and mental disorders like hypersexual disorder, anxiety or depression at the same time.

There are many factors and life stressors to consider when trying to understand pornography addiction but if you are struggling mentally and the desire for porn is just adding fuel to the fire, then it’s important to talk to a healthcare professional like a mental health professional such as a therapist so that you can then begin to get your daily life back under control and maintain healthy habits.

The Right Treatment

When getting treatment, whether that’s professional treatment or self-help, part of that might be trying to uncover the root cause your sexual behavior such as compulsive pornography. The root cause and other factors can be something like too much stress, increased anxiety levels, depression, an addictive substance use disorder, or lack of sexual intercourse, or it can be more nuanced like having a traumatic childhood.

There is a period of time where the excessive pornography viewing may have just been a part of curiosity and that can be difficult to understand as it may seem like there was no root cause but when looking at the root cause you’ll want to try to understand what it is that made you keep going back for more and more until there was a porn habit. The healing process to uncovering the root cause can be painful but once you get there you can then start to heal. You may do an activity in treatment that makes you feel worse temporarily but it’s important to trust the difficult process so that you can once again, be in control.

Sex addiction, porn and masturbation are addictive behaviors that produce dopamine, which is the feel good chemical in your brain transported by neural pathways. This is called the reward center. When you engage in an activity that has sexual satisfaction, the brain remembers the dopamine release and will send your body signals in the future that will make you want to have that feeling again. These are called triggers.

Being able to overcome these triggers is how you start to treat addictive behavior such as an addiction to pornography.

The Impact of Your Childhood

Another place to dive into is your childhood. Not everyone who struggles with sex, addiction porn or masturbation has a traumatic childhood or suffered from abuse. However, there could be some other factors or things that happened in your childhood that made things a bit more difficult for you to handle as an adult which could have lead to engaging in behavioral addictions like sex, porn or masturbation as a way to cope or escape a thought healing process or emotion.

Even as a child, viewing something on TV, erotic material or pornographic material on the internet that involves sexual behaviors can release dopamine. According to the Kinsey Institute, a survey of adolescent (10-17 y/o) internet users found 42% had been exposed to internet pornography in the past year, with 66% of those exposures reported as unwanted. Also there are many forms of pornography so it’s not always straight to viewing sexual intercourse on pornhub watching problematic porn that sets the addiction.

Porn habits don’t happen overnight. It might be best if you are able to do an activity that involves looking deeply at your childhood to see if there are any uncovered issues that can be worked through as this may help your recovery and real life. Sometimes childhood issues manifest in ways you wouldn’t think such as having compulsive thoughts or increased anxiety levels or just spending excessive time on pornography. 

Emotional Barriers

As you are progressing through recovery you should also be working through any emotional effects or barriers that you may have. Evidence has shown that people who struggle with a sexual addiction like pornography, there are invisible barriers that keep you from being able to express or feel raw, natural emotion. This is a negative impact that pornography has on the prefrontal cortex.

Literature shows that the prefrontal cortex plays a central role in cognitive control functions, and dopamine in the PFC modulates cognitive control, thereby influencing attention, impulse inhibition, prospective memory, and cognitive flexibility. Understanding these factors and emotional effects barriers such as anxiety, depression, loss of control, impulse control disorder or a substance addiction, will help be able to break through so that you can begin your path to having healthier intimate relationships, and sexual intercourse, less sexual dysfunction or erectile dysfunction, emotional responses and better brain activity.

Effective Treatment Options 

Receiving effective treatment is crucial. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

For some, this may be seeing a mental health professional such as a therapist or counselor. and for others it may be working diligently on yourself from the comfort of your own home. Many people also include 12-step programs such as sex addicts anonymous. There are online and phone options available now which helps with ease of access. Many people have a balanced approach and there is evidence to prove that working on your addiction as well as mental health issues is key to success.

If you are treating your porn addiction but not other factors like your anxiety, depression, ect, it’s unlikely the pornography addiction treatment will be effective. So whatever you choose, must be the best fit for you. When you recover from porn addiction you are not only retraining your prefrontal cortex you are also learning how to navigate real life in a healthier way. You will go on to have healthier relationships, a healthier sex life, and the bad effects of porn  like anxiety will gradually start to reduce with time. Excessive porn viewing and even the desire for porn can be something of only your past.

You will no longer feel the need to constantly view erotic material or pornographic material Your sexual behaviors rely heavily on what your brain is taking in so when you quit porn you are feeding your prefrontal cortex with activities that will soon start to feel good again. Abstaining from pornography will also help with any sexual dysfunction like erectile dysfunction or other negative impacts the pornography has caused 

Conclusion

Porn addiction can be a difficult habit to break and comes with a lot of anxiety, but with the right treatment options, resources, and understanding of the emotional effects it has on the prefrontal cortex, it is possible to overcome. It is important to look at any underlying issues from childhood that may have contributed to the addiction, as well as working through any emotional barriers that have been created by excessive porn viewing.

With dedication and perseverance , it is possible to retrain the prefrontal cortex and have healthier relationships, sexual intercourse, less risky behaviors and overall better brain function to increase daily functioning .

It is important to remember that recovery from porn addiction is a process and it takes time. Also remember, you are not alone. Celebrities like Kanye West and Terry Crews have recently come out about their own struggles with pornography. When Terry Crews talked about his addiction it shed some light onto how big the problem really is. Terry Crews talked about how it almost costed him his marriage but luckily he was able to overcome his pornography addiction and you can too.

It is not something that can be fixed overnight, but with the right support and resources, it is possible to break free from the habit. There are many online resources available such as support groups, forums, and websites dedicated to helping porn addicts. Additionally, there are books and other materials available to help those in recovery.

With the right support and dedication, it is possible to overcome porn addiction and have a healthier life free from anxiety.