Self help modules:
This module aims to help you to explore and gain understanding of the relationship between collecting and some of the unsatisfactory aspects of your life.
This module aims to help you to explore and gain understanding of the following:
For some people, collecting – and cataloguing, organising and all the other stuff that goes with it – can seem a big part of their offending.
If this is true for you, then keep reading this module!
Do you collect other things, as well as indecent images of children, for example stamps, coins or model cars? If you do, then it might be better to complete this exercise using one of those non-offending examples first. Then complete it a second time concentrating on the sexual images of children. It might be that you can compare the two and identify themes between them. This will help you later on when you are looking at what purpose collecting is serving for you.
From the examples below, make a note of the three reasons that you most identify with.
1. I get pleasure from a sense of completion and order
2. I find great value in the rarities and hard to come by items of my collection
3. I take pride in my collection
4. I like to compare my collection with other collectors
5. I have memories of sentimental attachments to my collection
6. Any other reasons
Write a few sentences explaining why you have ticked your top three reasons.
In what way are they more important to you than the others?
Not everybody seen as a ‘problematic collector’ will find that their behaviour negatively affects all areas of their life. It might just be that it affects one area. By understanding why you collect and how it impacts on your life, you will recognise if it is something that you need to address.
If you are collecting sexual images of children, then this is always a problem because it is harmful to both you and the children in the images.
Collecting can also become a problem when it starts to negatively impact on the other things in your life, such as:
Let’s take a look at what effect collecting is having on your life, using Exercise 2.
Answer questions 1-4 by rating how positive or negative you feel on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being very negative and 10 being very positive, in each situation.
Describe these emotions. Clue: if they are positive, examples include happy, excited or calm; if they are negative, examples include frustrated, angry, sad or bored
You might find it easier to look at your answers on a graph so that you can see the change in your feelings. Take a look at the example below and then see if you can plot your own.
So, for this person it is clear to see that they feel in a low mood prior to working on their collection. During the collecting, their mood increases. Afterwards, their mood drops again; this may be due to the guilt of what they have been accessing online, but it also may be due to the fact they are simply not collecting at that time.
The red line represents how they tend to feel on a day they are not collecting. So this graph may suggest that this person works on their collection when they feel low and uses it to perk themselves back up; and on the days they feel OK, they tend not to collect.
But why are they feeling low? Only they will know the answer to this but the module Recognising and dealing with feelings may help explore this.
Now you need to decide what you can do in order to meet these needs in a healthier, safer and legal way. We will help you to do just that in the building a good life section, so ensure you make a note of these needs so you can refer to them later.
A lot of people will have known that their collecting was wrong, but still continued to do it anyway. What are your justifications? Take some time to think about these or write them down, before you begin Exercise 4.
Tip: Be honest with yourself. You will never fully be able to understand your collecting if you aren’t acknowledging your true justifications.
Use the first column in the table below to list your justifications.
Then attempt to assume the role of someone who does not collect such images and consider whether or not they would accept your reasons for collecting. In the second column, write the response that you think the other person would give (you may want to try writing it out as a conversation between the two of you).
| Your justification | The other person’s response |
| Example justification: Nobody will ever know that I have the collection. | Example response: I know about it. And I could go to the police. Even if I didn’t, the police can see what you have accessed and they can track you down through your IP address. You can get in so much trouble and you might go to prison. |
Next time you consider collecting sexual images of children, look back over this table and use the responses to challenge your behaviour. This can be a useful and effective short term deterrent.
What have you learnt about yourself? What are you going to do?
If you have identified that collecting in general meets certain needs for you, then you can replace collecting sexual images of children with something else that is healthy and appropriate.
If collecting sexual images of children is the only form of collecting that meets specific needs, then you will need to look at other ways to meet those needs.
Remember to keep the list of these needs for building a good life.
If you want to discuss anything covered in this module, have struggled with working through the self-help material or just want the opportunity to work through the self-help site with a practitioner to guide you then please call our Stop It Now helpline for confidential support from our trained staff.
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.
