Barriers to self awareness
There’s a drawback to relying on self-awareness – how can you see what is invisible to you? How can you be conscious of the content of your unconscious? The two most common ways of imagining this are blind spots and distorted thinking (often called ‘cognitive distortions’ in treatment programmes)
Blind spots are parts of yourself that you just can’t see – it might be your behaviour or attitude for instance. In the case of child-porn it might well be the circumstances that lead up to the activities you’re now trying to stop, eg you’re not aware that feeling undermined by your boss on Tuesday leads to uploading a story you’ve just written about a schoolgirl being raped by her teacher on Saturday (feelings of powerlessness and humiliation are ‘forgotten’ but surface in a sexualised form when you’re on your own and fuel the humiliation of the child in the story).
Distorted thinking is similar but it relates to a set of beliefs you hold about the world – however you don’t realise they’re distorted. Examples of child-sex related distorted beliefs are ‘schoolboys like to be masturbated’ or ‘kids go online cruising for men like me’. There’s a fine line between distorted thinking (when you’re not conscious that it’s unhealthy) and a straight-forward justification of your actions (when you are aware there’s something wrong) – two men could say the same thing, eg ‘the girl was up for it’, and one could have a genuine ‘cognitive distortion’ and the other just excusing his behaviour.
How do you overcome this drawback? Listen to feedback from others. Leaving to one side the risks in telling others about your child-sex behaviour, there are pros and cons to getting feedback from someone else depending on who they are:
Person
Typical advantage
Typical disadvantage
Partner
Immediate/constant feedback based on intimate knowledge.
Most likely to be biased by their own relationship with you, also most likely to be under your influence.
Friend
Immediate feedback based on the ‘Me’ you are with them.
Although less likely to be biased by your relationship, they may still feel uncomfortable/unable to give honest feedback.
Your GP
Level of professional detachment and experience of dealing with personalities of many patients.
May not have the time or expertise to consider your blind spots and approach to life.
General counsellor or psychotherapist
Trained in raising awareness of unconscious ways of being and helping clients address anxieties/problems.
May not have experience or willingness to work with men who engage in some way in the sexual exploitation of children.
Forensic counsellor or psychotherapist
Experienced in helping clients address problems in life leading towards criminal behaviour.
Potential to be over-focussed on crime-related behaviour in short-term work.
Sex Offender Treatment group member*
May be able to identify with you and share experience and insight to help you learn about yourself.
Potential to be collusive or discouraging you from sorting your problems out if they don’t want to change and feel threatened.
Sex Offender Treatment group facilitator*
Has experience of working with ‘sex offenders’ and provides structure through a manual on how to change.
A manualised approach may not tally with your individual experience. You may not feel that your ‘rehabilitation’ belongs to you so you become detached from it.
* Sex Offender Treatment programmes are usually only available to men who have been convicted of a sexual offence and can include sexual offences against adults and contact offences such as rape and child molesting.
Johari’s Window
One way to get feedback on your character and potential blind spots is through an exercise, commonly found in rehabilitation programmes, called ‘Johari’s Window’ (developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham). The idea is that you and others write down your characteristics and place them on the following grid depending on your level of self-awareness:
What you and others know about you
(your ‘open self’)
What others know about you but you don’t
(your ‘blind spots’)
What you know about yourself but others don’t
(your ‘façade’)
What neither you nor others know about you
(your ‘unknown self’)
The aim of most rehabilitation programmes is to expand your ‘open self’ through raising awareness of your ‘blind spots’ and you bringing your ‘façade’ into the open. This leads to personal growth which in turn enables your ‘unknown self’ to emerge and become ‘open’.
TOP TIP: Consider your potential blind spots and distorted thinking, then complete Johari’s Window for yourself. As this will only be about half the picture, ask those around you for beedback on what they know about you, or how they see you. They do not have to know this is about your use of child-porn – it may well be a straight-forward personal development programme. From the results, see what you need to raise awareness of, or bring out into the open, to feel stronger and more fulfilled.
Keeping a journal
Many people who are going through a process of change keep a diary of some kind. For some it’s a way to get hidden feelings out in a safe way, or it can be a simple record of certain activities that can be reviewed to measure changes. A combination of both these aspects is very useful when making the decision to break free from child-porn as you can record your online and offline activity and take time to consider your emotions and thoughts to see how they related to your behaviour.
TOP TIP: Keep a daily journal or mood diary and make a note of when you were involved in child-sex activity and what your thoughts and feelings were before, during and after each event. Take time to review changes and think about emerging patterns that support the child-sex related behaviour you are trying to stop.
© Chris Willoughby 2008-
