10 Mar Will future generations struggle to maintain relationships?

Psychologists are concerned that when the adolescent brain is exposed to porn, it will struggle to form and maintain a relationship in the future. There is also cause for concern with issues for future partners being treated with respect.

Rob Watt, who is a Harley Street psychotherapist, says: “Sex addicts presenting today are unrecognisable to clients presenting 10 years ago. We are increasingly seeing more people presenting with a compulsive behaviour on pornography and, in the younger generation, this is becoming more pronounced”.
According to the Harley Street clinic, they have reported that there has been a 100 percent rise in referrals over the last six years for porn addiction.

In a recent article in the Evening Standard they report that “The number of Londoners seeking help for porn addiction soars” www.standard.co.uk/news/health/number-of-londoners-seeking-help-for-porn-addiction-soars

The problem is, it has become easier for those with a compulsive use of internet hard core content, to find more and more sites that offer high speed streaming. Not only is this content free, but it also leads to a search for more graphic and harder content.

The addiction is strengthened by repetition, just like when we learn to drive a car, the more we practice the less we have to think about it. A brain chemical called Dopamine controls the brain’s pleasure centre, the problem is that over stimulation causes the pleasure centre to become desensitized. This in turn leads to needing more Dopamine to be released than before to reach the same level of pleasure and this leads the addict into searching for more or harder content.