Self help modules:
This module will help you explore and understand the relationship between your online and offline social lives and problematic online relationships.
This module will help you explore and understand:
Sexual offending happens in the offline and online world. But some people we work with often tell us they would not have offended without the internet, apps or smartphones.
A huge majority of people have access to the internet but not everyone offends online.
This means that the internet doesn’t cause offending; people who have offended online made a choice to do so. But it is important to consider how the internet might make offending easier for some people.
For some people the internet can feel like an good place to engage in sexual behaviour. But why is that? Some people think the ‘Triple A Engine’ helps answer this question.
What other aspects of the internet might make it feel like an attractive place to engage in sexual activity? Use the template to think about why the internet became a place for sexual behaviour for you.
Think about the examples below:
Now that you have identified why you used the internet as a place for sexual behaviour, it is important to think about why that might be a problem in some circumstances.
Think about the ideas you had above, but now think about what the difficulties with these ideas might be. For example:
Some people we work with say they behaved in a way online that they wouldn’t have done in the offline world.
The panopticon is a design of building meaning that one person can see all those in the building.
It is important to think about how we behave when we feel we might be being observed, compared to how we behave when we think no one is watching.
This is the same with online behaviour and how people can feel like they are anonymous and not being watched by others when they are online. This can result in people feeling detached from their online behaviour, as if it is not part of their true self.
How does this relate to you? How was your online behaviour different from your offline behaviour? Think about how you behave on social media, what you might look at online, who you might talk to, and how you might talk to them.
There will also be ways you behave online that are the same as offline, and it is important to think about these too. This shows that the online and offline world are not completely separate.
For example, did you look for sexual material online but not offline? Did you communicate with people online that you did not or would not offline? Did you communicate in the same way with others online and offline, for example in your use of language and your level of politeness?
Think about:
We all have an idea of how we come across to other people. How we act can be affected by the situation we are in and the people we are with.
Think about how you might present yourself differently at work compared to when you’re with friends and how this might be different again when with family.
Some people feel that they can be very different online compared to how they are ‘in the real world’.
How would you describe yourself offline? Make a note of all the words below and any others that describe you.
How would you describe yourself online? Make a note of all the words below and any others that describe you.
What differences are there between your online and offline selves? Are there qualities about your online self that you like and wish you could transfer into the real world? Make a note of them and they can be a starting point for goals you set in planning for a good life.
It is often easier to relate to others online. They might share our interests, accept us more easily and make us feel important or powerful. Unless we choose to let others online see us as we really are, we can pretend to be whoever we want to be. Online relationships in some ways make fewer demands.
Think about your online relationships and answer the following questions:
| Online relationships | Offline relationships | |
| Write down how many significant people you have in your online and offline world. | ||
| What good things do I get out of these? | ||
| What gaps are they filling in my life? | ||
| What do these relationships mean to me? | ||
| What do I enjoy about chatting to these people? |
What do you notice about the online and offline relationships?
Are there some things that you would only discuss or do online? Why is this?
How does this make you feel? Do you see your online relationships differently now?
Think about your online relationships and answer the following questions:
Using the table below, write down the things you value about real-life relationships and then what you could do to achieve these.
| Value | Action |
| Intimacy | Express how I feel more |
| Time together | Join a weekly salsa class together |
Some people don’t have as many offline relationships as they would like. If this applies to you then this will be covered in more detail in the planning for a good life module.
If you feel lonely then the following exercise can be helpful to start thinking about how you have been coping with those feelings and how you can cope more positively in the future.
| Situation or event | Negative Strategy or behaviour Including thoughts and feelings | Positive Strategy or behaviour Including thoughts and feelings |
| Living alone. Feeling isolated. | Going online into chat rooms, engaging in sexual chat. Felt excited at first but afterwards guilty and ashamed. | Take Spanish lessons. Feel scared at first session but afterwards happy. |
You can use our helpline, live chat or secure message service for confidential support from our experienced advisors if you want to discuss anything covered in this module, have struggled when working through it, or want to go through the information with a practitioner to guide you.
This module will help you explore and understand your current sexual and non-sexual fantasies, and the link between your fantasies and your online behaviour
If you are concerned about your worrying or illegal online sexual behaviour and want to stop this behaviour, it is important for you to learn as much as possible about yourself and what you are doing.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding your level of control over your current online sexual behaviours, how you have used denial to allow your problematic behaviour to continue and how to make immediate changes to start the change process.
Sexual offending happens in the offline and online world. But some people we work with often tell us they would not have offended without the internet, apps or smartphones.
This module will help you understand, different types of triggers and your own triggers
If you are viewing legal adult pornography then this is your choice and we are not here to shame you for using it or to tell you to stop. But this self-help section will encourage you to think about whether viewing legal adult pornography is helpful or harmful for you.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of how you can start to address your addictions.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of your motivation for engaging sexually with children online, how your behaviour progressed into sexual communication and how you might have justified your behaviour.
This module will help you understand the false justifications offenders use to avoid responsibility for their actions, that these images are of real children being abused and the effects of being photographed on the children in the image.
This module aims to help you to explore and gain understanding of why you collect, how it links to your offending and the relationship between collecting and some of the unsatisfactory aspects of your life.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of why immediate gratification is so powerful and how to manage the desire of immediate gratification.
Our confidential helpline is free and available to anyone concerned about the safety of children.
Lucy Faithfull Foundation offers support and advice for parents, carers, professionals, survivors and communities. Shore is for teenagers worried about sexual behaviour.
Our helpline 0808 1000 900
2 Birch House, Harris Business Park, Hanbury Road
Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B60 4DJ
Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a Registered Charity No. 1013025, and is a company limited by guarantee, Registered in England No. 2729957.
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