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Negative Motivations: harnessing your fears |
Negative motivations – harnessing the power of your fears
Although positive motivations are the most helpful in the long run, negative motivations, for example ‘the harm that I will cause to myself’, are very useful when you have strong cravings to return to child-porn to change your mood. Often we respond better to thoughts of protecting ourselves from harm when we’re in a more agitated or emotional state.
Below are some concepts to help you become more aware of your negative motivations – be honest with yourself and consider what makes you really anxious about your use of child-sexual material.
TOP TIP: When you start to feel anxious about the consequences of your use of child-porn tap the top of your left hand with your right middle finger. Repeat this every time you feel anxiety, panic or other negative emotion about the behaviour you want to stop – keep building up the association between fear consequences and the tapping feeling on your hand. Once you’ve built up this association, the next time you have a craving to go online for child-sex, start tapping your hand – you should find that your anxieties return and undermine your craving!
My Greatest Fears
Although the fear of getting caught is quite common, not everyone is worried by this – instead, some men worry about how far they will go before they’re ready to stop (and whether they’ll ever want to stop). What is it that worries you about your child-sexual activity? Think about all the things that have got worse since you entered this world of sexual abuse – has your personality changed? What about your relationships and your sex-life?
Think also about what your biggest weaknesses are, as these can be as powerful as your strengths. Are you impatient and too ready to give up if things don’t change straight away? Are you too confident in one or other of your abilities, for instance your intellect or communication skills? Being aware of your pitfalls will help you plan to overcome them when you start to quit.
Beware of the ‘I want to be cured’ mentality as it can seriously undermine your chances to change – ‘the cure’ suggests you will never have cravings for child-porn or child-sexual fantasies again, which is unlikely, and it also undermines a responsible ‘day-by-day’ approach which is more likely to bring lasting results.
My Closest Relationships
When your private world becomes public and others find out that you access, store or distribute images or films of children being sexually abused, how will it affect your relationships? How will your wife, husband or partner(s) react? How will your parents, brothers and sisters feel, and what will they do. What about work – will you be able to keep your job? Will your employer check to make sure you weren’t accessing this material at work (so your colleagues may find out)?
© Chris Willoughby 2008-
