An Article Review
Written by: Sabah Sayed Ali
In 2012, the American Journal of Family Therapy published an article titled “Structural Therapy with a Couple Battling Pornography Addiction” by Jeffrey J. Ford, Jared A. Durtschi, and Darell L. Franklin. This remarkable publication addresses an issue about how the increasing availability of pornographic material is becoming detrimental to couples’ relationships. It notifies the reader that boundless addictions to pornography are affecting individuals in a relationship, and as a result, therapists are pursuing effective ways to solve this significant issue. In this article, it is mentioned that pornography causes personal distress and symptoms of withdrawal and tolerance, which, in turn, can adversely affect relationship and neurological functioning. Unfortunately, there are many instances where therapists encounter victims of pornography addiction, but due to its uncommon occurrence, importance is not given to these addictions. The effects of this addiction are often underestimated, and it is often ignored that these addictions are as severe and difficult as other types of addictions. Therefore, this article addresses the severity of pornographic addictions, in addition to introducing the implementation of a successful structural therapy for obsessive patterns of pornographic addiction.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the structural therapy, the authors present a case study of a couple battling a pornographic addiction. The subjects involved in this case study are a couple named John and Mary, who have been married for ten years. Unfortunately, details of the location of the case study are not mentioned in this article. The origin of the pornographic addiction arose at the beginning of the couples’ marriage, where they used to enjoy pornography together. However, Mary stated that as time passed gradually, John began to be secretive about his increasing time spent alone viewing pornography. When Mary discovered John’s secretive actions, she distrusted him, and began to quest and destroy all the sources that contained pornography. Progressively, their marriage was affected negatively by John’s intense addiction to pornography; therefore, John and Mary decided to acquire treatment and consult with a therapist. When the couple met the therapist and a female co-therapist, they hypothesized that Mary’s distrust was not only related to John’s dishonesty about pornography, but also simply by his use of pornography. Moreover, they hypothesized that John was addicted to pornography, and neither John nor Mary was able to recognize this addiction. In order to help Mary and John’s marriage, the therapist and co-therapist used structural therapy to focus on the addiction prior to working on relationship concerns. The objective of the therapist and co-therapist for using the structural therapy was to cease the pornography addiction, and also to allow the restructuring of the couple’s system, which would significantly improve their marital satisfaction.
Primarily, in the case study, the process of structural therapy was to diminish John’s attraction towards pornography. The therapist and co-therapist accomplished this by diagrammatically demonstrating their marriage as a triangle. The explicit process of drawing a triangle was beneficial, because it encouraged the clients to visually observe and identify pornography as an existing third member in their marriage. The image of pornography being a third member in their marriage caused John to realize that viewing pornography was equivalent to secretly meeting with another woman, and thereby, in his perspective, it mimicked a situation as if he was cheating on his wife. During this session, John decided that he should be truthful to his wife about his incessant use of pornography, and he requested Mary’s support in halting his obsessive actions towards pornography. After John’s realization, the therapist instructed John to gather all of his sources of pornography, such as magazines, videos, and disks, and place them in a box in the corner of the basement. After a few weeks, John decided that he wanted to reach to the level of abstinence from pornography; therefore, he removed all sources to be permanently distant from pornography. This decision successfully united the couple and helped them overcome the battle against pornography; thus opened the door to the second step of the structural therapy, which is the reconstruction of a new bond between John and Mary, without a third member involved in the relationship. To heal the wounds that pornography had carved upon their marriage, the remaining sessions were utilized to discuss and plan how the reconstruction of the new bond would be implemented.
In conclusion, the structural therapy resulted in the extinction of John’ attraction towards pornography, which eliminated the infidelity from John, allowing the couple to strengthen the weaknesses in their marriage and build a strong coalition. After the presence of a third member in their relationship was diminished, John and Mary reported a growth in marital satisfaction, stating that their marriage has never been as happier in the past ten years as it is presently. Therefore, the enforcement of the structural therapy in this case study proved to be significantly effective, because it served as a cohesive agent for John and Mary and helped them dominate the issues of the pornography. Thus, it strengthened the spousal sub-system as opposed to the sub-system of John and pornography, resulting in a lasting, systematic change, including marital success.
After reviewing this article, I learned that structural model is a useful principle that is applicable to any human system in need of change, especially in the field of therapy. Even though pornography addiction is not listed in the DSM-IV as an approved mental disorder amongst drug or gambling addictions, I believe that therapists should take pornographic addiction as serious as other addictions and take advantage of the existence of structural therapy. Currently, pornography addiction has become an attention-seeking issue, because pornography causes a change in perspective towards ones’ spouse. In addition, people using pornography are viewing their spouses as sexual objects, rather than honored and respected people. Furthermore, in a marriage relationship, pornographic addiction is driving a wedge between couples. Therefore, from this article, I have learned that it is very important for a person to outreach for a knowledgeable professional, such as a psychologist or therapist, who can treat their overpowering addictions with an organized structural therapy; thereby, giving them a new meaning and direction to their lives.