An important part of the PRUK mission is to try to get counsellors and psychotherapists interested in working therapeutically with issues around porn and cybersex ‘addictions’ or dependencies. ‘While it is never going to be easy work,’ says Duncan E. Stafford, psychotherapist, supervisor and author of Turned On: Intimacy in a pornized society, ‘there still seems an out-of-proportion aversion to really working with the subject matter from therapists and an unwillingness to address the fact that our pornized society is causing deep wounds in susceptible users.’ (Read WHY therapists need to know about porn)

It is not just the users of porn like Stephanie that need help it is also anyone who is affected by their actions. The view of PRUK is that in order to support the partners and families of users therapists need to have enough knowledge of the current subject matter to really help and support. In short, to work with the issues effectively we need to know something about the routes into pornography – and this is something that has changed greatly over time. Marc’s story is typical of a man from his mid to late 30s upwards, Jake’s story much more representative of the still emerging dangers there are for those in the younger age ranges.