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Seduction, Deception And Technology: The Lure of Online Addiction
This paper was originally written during lockdown when our lives migrated online in so many ways, and shines a light on aspects of the online existence which has become a constant of our contemporary life. It describes my work with a man who had become addicted to internet pornography. My patient was able to address his problem with pornography and significantly address his addiction but remained cut off emotionally. I was interested in how the ‘alien landscape’ of technology can reinforce such defences. My patient’s use of internet pornography revealed his difficulties with intimacy that were replicated in the transference with me.
I became interested in the addictive processes he employed to mask his fear of connection. I learnt to view the content of the sexual scenes he was compelled to search for as if I were thinking of a dream. This became a portal to discovering what for him, was so terrifying about the other. I began to see both his addiction and his use of sexual material as his psyche’s way of mastering his early relational trauma. The paper describes the challenges of working with such dissociated and sexualised affects. By cultivating a symbolic attitude to his addiction, the transcendent function began to emerge.
The paper is an attempt to think about how we might begin to humanise these alienated parts that the addictive use of pornography brings to life. This piece of work, undertaken at the same time as undergoing analytic training, profoundly influenced my way of working. I want to invite discussion about the concept of the wounded healer and how we relate to such fears of intimacy in cases such as the one described.