Self help modules:
This module will help you explore and understand your online sexual behaviour, how your sexual behaviour moved into offending behaviour and your motivations for this.
This module will help you explore and understand:
Using the quiz below, select your current level of knowledge and understanding about your online behaviour.
If you have very little knowledge or some understanding, this section will be really helpful for you to increase your knowledge around why you might be behaving illegally online.
You might already have some understanding of why you have been or are tempted to behave illegally online. You might also have recognised some of the motivations listed above. But sometimes it can be difficult to understand our behaviour. We will show you two ways you can use to improve your understanding.
The first is to think about when you go online and what mood you are in.
Below is a diary for you to complete which will help you think about these and help you identify patterns of behaviour.
Instructions
The second exercise is in three parts and looks back over your life to help you think about how you started behaving illegally online.
This first step aims to give you a clear visual record of how you moved towards illegal online sexual behaviour.
In each box, write a short description of an important event in your life. These events should show how your online behaviour changed, eventually leading to your illegal online sexual behaviour.
Look at the example below to help you get started. We recommend completing your timeline in the following order:
Remember that this is your timeline – if you feel that you need more boxes to tell your story then feel free to add them.
Instructions
Instructions
Happy, Sad, Angry, Hurt, Depressed, Frustrated, Impulsive, Stressed, Relaxed Excited, Bored, Curious, Rejected, Doubtful, Interested, Lonely, Irritated, Ashamed Upset, Annoyed, Miserable, Guilty, In despair, Uneasy, Useless, Vulnerable, Afraid Nervous, Timid, Indifferent, Restless, Alienated, Nonchalant, Dull, Anxious, Confident
Looking back over your diary and your timeline, think about these questions:
1. How much control do you feel you had over the events that influenced you to engage in more risky behaviour? In hindsight, how could you have handled them differently?
2. How much control do you think you had over the choices you made to move towards further offending behaviour? Why?
3. What effect, patterns or trends can you notice about how your sexual fantasies developed?
Now think about when you started using the internet regularly:
4. Why did you decide to use the internet?
5. Did using the internet change the way you were thinking? In what way?
6. Over time, what effect did the internet have on your life offline (in the real world)?
7. How would you describe your life online?
Now think about the one event that led you behave illegally online for the first time:
8. Why do you think it was this specific event that triggered you to behave illegally online for the first time? Why not something earlier in your life?
9. Were there other things happening in your life beyond what you have mentioned that could have contributed to your decision to behave illegally online?
10. Why do you think you have continued the behaviour over time?
11. Using the list below, make a note of all the illegal behaviour that you have engaged in:
Can you identify how your offending changed over time and involved different behaviours?
12. Have you at any time tried to stop your illegal online sexual behaviour? If yes, how many times did you try and stop? Why do you think you were not successful?
What are the important things that are motivating you to stop your illegal behaviour now? How important are they to you?
As with the introduction to this module, using the table below, write down your current level of knowledge and understanding about your online behaviour.
(1 = very little knowledge; 2 = some understanding; 3 = secure understanding).
| I have a clear and detailed understanding of my sexual behaviour and the internet. | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| I can identify key events in my life that influenced me to engage in more risky sexual behaviour over time. | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| I understand how I came to first behave illegally online. | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| I am aware of my patterns of internet use and when I am most likely to behave illegally. | 1 | 2 | 3 |
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.
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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.
