Dr. Gola’s background on problematic pornography use research and treatment

KRISTEN: I am really excited today because Dr. Gola is meeting with us to tell us more about addiction and the brain science behind it–especially when it comes to pornography. He’s going to shed some light on the recent data. This is a great opportunity to get an update on the latest neuroscience of addiction. 

Welcome, Dr. Gola. Thank you for being here with me today.‍

DR. GOLA: Thank you, Kristen, for having me. It’s a pleasure to share this knowledge with you and everyone who will watch it.‍

KRISTEN: [Members] of our Defend Young Minds community are very interested in raising their children to be free from pornography and other internet addictions and digital dangers.

Before we get going, I need to properly introduce you and tell people what your background is. 

Dr. Gola is a psychotherapist and a neuroscientist. He helps individuals with addiction through clinical work and does cutting edge research. He’s also an associate professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences–which is pretty impressive. And at the University of California in San Diego.

Dr. Gola is a leader in the field of studies of neuroscience of problematic pornography use. Sometimes that’s called PPU–problematic pornography use. And he’s the author and coauthor of over 120 research publications. That in and of itself shows you what an expert he is.

But in his free time he also enjoys surfing, which of course is great in California. And meeting new people while traveling the world, which I love to do too.

Thank you so  much for being here with us.

Let’s start with some background before we get into the actual science. What initiated your interest in how viewing pornography effects the brain?‍

DR. GOLA: First of all, I always wanted to do something for people and help as many people as possible. So back in Poland I started my education in clinical psychology. I earned a clinical psychology doctorate and I started working with patients.

While working with patients I was working mostly with people with different types of addictions and there were also people who were seeking treatment because of pornography addiction, problematic pornography use, and sometimes other sexual behaviors. 

It was back in 2010, 2009 and I realized that actually we have very little knowledge about it. There was no good research, no systematic data on how it changes your functioning, how it influences your brain, or how to help those people. And it was not classified in any classification of this order so it wasn’t an “official” problem.

One very striking thing was that in the seven years of my education to become a clinical psychologist there was not even a single hour in the education program about compulsive sexual behavior or problematic pornography use. Nothing.‍

Dr. Gola went on to earn a doctorate in neuroscience and began extensive research on problematic pornography use and then used that research to develop an effective treatment program.‍

KRISTEN: So you got started because you saw there were all these people who had this problem and yet in your course of study for your degree there wasn’t even a class that was teaching you how to help people with these problems. So you just went, figured it out, started learning, and started a lot of research. That is so wonderful. That is such a gift, really.‍

DR. GOLA: Now thanks to this research we have a much better understanding of this problem. Now I’m back to clinical work. [Because of this research] it’s easier to help people and [treatment] is much more effective now. 

But what is even more important is that we increased the awareness of this problem through this knowledge and every serious training program for clinicians now has classes or even very extensive trainings about compulsive sexual behavior disorders, behavioral addictions and also pornography.

‍KRISTEN: That’s wonderful. That’s such a huge step ahead. 

Problematic pornography use is much easier to prevent than treat

KRISTEN: At Defend Young Minds, and myself as an author of Good Pictures Bad Pictures, we are getting tools into the hands of parents so that they know how to initiate these conversations with their kids so they can avoid it. Because I have talked with so many people–and I would say most of them are men, but there are many women out there as well–who are caught in a pornography addiction. And they have come up to me and said, “I wish my parents had had something that they could use to talk to me about this.” In other words, “I wish I would’ve been warned as a younger child before I got into porn.”

So I can see that our missions are definitely complimentary.

DR. GOLA: I want to say that what you are doing is very important and I appreciate this work, and especially this idea to deliver knowledge and those basic skills through such interesting books. 

It’s much easier to prevent than treat. So this prevention is very, very important.

How porn use becomes an addiction

KRISTEN: Speaking about our brains and addiction, we know our brains are malleable, we know that they’re “plastic” in a sense–that they change. Every experience we have changes our brain a little bit, in small ways. But how does using porn change the brain in bigger ways, in more serious ways that begin to negatively impact a person’s life?

DR. GOLA: This is a great question and this was the main focus of our research during the first years. First of all, we need to understand what addiction is. And this is not obvious, even among scientists.

One of the features which is common across different addictions, both related to substances and to behaviors–like gambling, gaming or in this case we are talking about problematic pornography use–is there’s a huge disproportion between the effort you need to put in to receive the reward. The reward is much higher than the effort you are putting in.

When we are talking about the regular sexual behaviors–someone, for example, who wants to have their first sexual encounter. It takes some time, a lot of effort, you need to look good, you need to present yourself, you need to build a relationship, and then at some point you have sex. So it’s a huge effort. And there is a reward.

When we are talking about pornography, you don’t need to look good, you don’t need to present yourself, it’s just a few clicks on your cell phone or on the keyboard and Boom! You have a lot of sexual stimuli and also you can have orgasms and you can have even multiple orgasms just during the day–when you’re addicted it happens very often. And this reward is completely disproportionate to the effort. 

And then the addictive power is huge. And what happens? When you feel pleasure, which satisfies our needs, which is rewarding, then the reward circuits in the brain, especially the ventral striatum or prefrontal cortex–they are learning all the cues which can predict this reward. 

So we start learning very fast that if A happens, then I can expect this reward. If I behave well, then I will get some extra pocket money. If I perform well at work, I will get a raise in my salary. 

But there is also very simple learning. Like when I’m home alone, I can watch porn. When I have access to this tablet or this phone, that's not filtered, I can watch porn. And if I’ve been watching pornography in certain circumstances very often, or if I have been watching pornography as a response to a specific emotion–whenever I feel sad, depressed, angry, lonely, frustrated, whatever–then the brain starts recognizing the circumstances or emotional states as cues.

And then what happens? Dopamine is released and dopamine plays a very important role in motivation. It’s released in response to cues to different things, so when we see grandpa we know that if we are nice we can get some pocket money so we are motivated to behave nice. 

But when this mechanism is driven by other cues which are associated with pornography watching, then we start doing everything we can to really have access to this pornography. We are very motivated to have this access and to start watching and to find something exciting and then to masturbate and have an orgasm–it’s the ultimate reward.

Over time, when this behavior is repeated thousands of times, then this becomes very automatic and very strong and at some point it’s so strong that it’s not any more perceived as motivation, it’s something that resembles a craving. There’s a very strong need to do it and it’s very hard to inhibit.

We have the capacity to inhibit our cravings and the prefrontal cortex is playing a very important role in doing this. And that’s why whenever we decide to go on diets, we can resist eating sweets and so on and reach our long-term goals. When we are going to school we learn how to do our homework first and then play, and we can resist the temptation to play before doing homework and so on. And we don’t watch pornography in random places and random times. 

But when the prefrontal cortex cannot inhibit the ventral striatum, those reward pathways, then we can’t control our behaviors anymore.

KRISTEN: So that’s the real marker of an addiction. When that thinking brain is bypassed. The thinking brain can no longer control the drive and the craving to do something to get porn.

The effect porn has on the brain

DR. GOLA: Addiction happens in at least two scenarios. One scenario is that through multiple repetitions of the same behavior–watching pornography in this specific context, in response to specific emotions and so on–we develop very strong sensitization for the cues and then the ventral striatum becomes over responsive so it’s reacting immediately and very strongly to the certain cues. It’s like a vampire–if you have this little cue, like if there’s a drop of blood and we cannot stop there we have to bite and suck out the blood. We need to go all this way to watch the porn, to masturbate, to reach orgasm.

The second scenario is when something happens to the prefrontal cortex. We study adults and we see that adults who are at the level of this problematic pornography use and they are seeking treatment because of that, they have less gray matter, less neuronal cells in the same parts of the prefrontal cortex as people who are addicted to alcohol or gambling. And we don't know if this is something that is pre-existing, my guess is yes, that this is a pre-existing thing which creates some vulnerability to developing any type of addiction. Or is it an effect of pornography use? Probably not. The effect of pornography use is the sensitization of the ventral striatum.

Related: Can Pornography Shrink the Human Brain?

Porn addiction and kids

DR. GOLA: When it comes to kids, we know that the prefrontal cortex is developing until the 18th, 19th year of life in the case of women and in the case of men it takes a bit longer until 20, 21. So the sooner someone is exposed to potentially addictive things–like pornography–the child will not be able to inhibit that and the chance to develop a problematic pattern is higher.

KRISTEN: The younger they start the more it can impact their brain, is what you’re saying? 

DR. GOLA: Probably yes. We still don’t have clear data proving that. But we know for sure that when we are younger we have less ability to control our behaviors. That’s why we don’t sell alcohol to people who are under 18 years old in Europe and 21 in the U.S. That’s why “officially” pornography is allowed from 18 years–not 12 or 13 or 10. 

Related: Counselor Shares 5 Strategies to Keep Kids from Porn Addiction

Kids' exposure to porn

DR. GOLA: We just published a study where we were tracking behaviors of 300,000 people on the internet. And among them were also kids–starting from seven years old. And guess how many kids in the group from 7-10 were watching pornography at least once a month.

KRISTEN: I’m going to let you answer, because that was my next question–what's your data on how kids are watching porn? What’s your latest data? So tell me about this.

DR. GOLA: 25% of boys and girls. So every fourth kid was watching porn at least once a month.

KRISTEN: Between the ages of 7-10. Well, they have access to it. Like you said before, we don’t let them go out and buy cigarettes. We don’t let an eight year old go out and buy alcohol at the corner store. But we give them access to a phone or a tablet and away they go and they figure it out.

I was just talking with someone who told me about a mom whose husband was this IT expert and he felt like he had locked down the phone, but the mom just had a feeling to check her 15 year old’s phone and her husband did. It was horrific the things that were on there and it had just been a week and a half. He (the son) had just started a new job, and a new coworker showed him how to get around that [filter’s] control. The kids teach each other. And in that week and a half his countenance had changed and he looked dark and was withdrawing. 

And I’ve heard this before. For example, early on when I was first writing Good Pictures Bad Pictures I learned about an eight year old girl. Her mother had given her an internet-enabled device and she’d also talked to her about sex. Well this little girl saw how her parents would go to Google to get answers, so she typed in sex and started looking at pornography and over the months she just became more and more withdrawn. She’d been this happy little girl, porn just really affected her personality. Until her parents found out, and thankfully they did, and they took her to counseling and she was able to get help with that.

But children have such access, they’re curious, and they don’t know [it’s dangerous] unless you tell them. They have no idea this could have serious future consequences. 

And kids are very “now” oriented. If you tell them it could affect their ability to find someone to marry in fifteen years, or other things they aren’t very interested. They are much more focused on their life right now. But at least they need a warning, they need to be able to understand that they could be negatively impacted in a big way by looking at pornography.

Who is most vulnerable to developing problematic porn use?

DR. GOLA: Of course porn doesn’t impact everyone the same way. This is also important to note and not to panic. We know that about 11% of boys say they have this experience of losing control over pornographic use, so we know that [the majority aren’t experiencing problematic pornography use]. So this doesn't impact everyone in the same way, but it may impact some people in this way.

KRISTEN: Right, just like with alcohol. There are some people that can drink in moderation and there are other people that it absolutely destroys their lives. And I’ve got both people in my family. The thing is this–you don’t know exactly how it will impact someone.

But you can tell us–explain to us who you feel is the most vulnerable for developing an addiction to pornography. 

And we can talk about addiction and addiction is really important to avoid. There are other problems with pornography other than addiction. So that’s why it’s so important to talk to kids about it. It’s not just addiction. There are many other issues–it’s the way women are treated, it’s the attitudes that it engenders, it’s the negative scripts, and all that. 

But we’re going to get back to addiction. So who’s the most vulnerable when it comes to addiction. And can a parent, if they have 3 or 4 kids, could they kind of pick out who might be the one that they really need to worry about?

DR. GOLA: First of all, we have two different types of vulnerability for addiction. One is related to biology and genetics. And there is one very simple diagnostic question–Is there any history of any type of addiction in the family?

If one or both parents or grandparents were addicted to something, then we can assume a high probability that there is this vulnerability among the kids.

Then the second thing a psychologist considers is vulnerability. And here we know from studies that people who develop problematic pornography use usually have fewer skills in emotional regulation. So they are either more depressed or they have difficulty regulating or coping with their emotions themselves, they need some support. 

How do you help a child when you identify a vulnerability?

DR. GOLA: [If your child has difficulty regulating emotions], this is something that we can teach. Good relationships between the parents and kids–relationships based on trust where the kids can talk about everything and don't have to worry about the reaction of the parents–if they would be upset, angry, or disappointed–it helps a lot. 

Such relationships between siblings–older and younger siblings–helps a lot.

Everything that helps to deal with the difficulties of life, with emotions is important. Where there is permission to express all types of emotions, especially those difficult emotions, helps a lot.

If we don’t have such a base, then the vulnerability for either problematic gaming or pornography use is pretty high because it’s much more accessible than substances.

KRISTEN: Yes. We talk about this a lot on Defend Young Minds–about emotional resilience and teaching kids to recognize their emotions and to develop healthy ways to get their emotional needs met. Because otherwise–if you look at a child’s life–porn is one of the easiest things to access and the one that’s such a super stimulus that can give them a distraction. If they come home and they’ve been bullied or if they’re lonely or if they’re angry or whatever, go to porn. 

I did a whole study on “why kids hire porn.” And obviously one [reason] was to learn about sex because they’re parents hadn’t taught them about sex. But another big one was emotional needs. 

Nobody wants to feel bad. We will do almost anything to get away from feeling anxious, feeling depressed. I think that if we can teach kids healthy ways to do that, they have that tool in their toolkit and they’re much less vulnerable.

DR. GOLA: This is a very important  tool. As you know, according to the studies we were doing and others we’re doing, in this group of 7-10 years old, most of the kids when they go to porn they go because of their curiosity. 

But when you look at the 14-15 year olds, you already have a group of about 10% of boys who watch pornography every day. And you don’t watch every day because of curiosity, you watch every day because you’re running away from some difficulties in your life. You just found a way to log out from life for a moment or even a few hours. Because pornography always provides excitement and novelty and a great distraction–there’s always something new to find. And when you masturbate with it, it’s also a pleasure.

KRISTEN: And so the two combined create a huge response in the brain. And like you said, the brain gets sensitized to all those situations. I find myself, I have a little bit of a sweet tooth, and when I get upset if I’m not being careful I’m in front of the refrigerator with the doors open before I even know it. 

So our brains have worked out some of these ‘go-to’ things that are difficult to change. I have to work really hard at changing that. And I do. But that’s definitely something that kids need to learn. 

We actually have a special guide on teaching emotional resilience to your children so I’d invite all of you to go and check that out. It has simple, easy ways to teach emotional resilience. And we have a lot of articles about it as well on our blog.

How porn makes it more difficult to derive pleasure from other things‍

KRISTEN: You talked about how pornography can sensitize the brain. I think about it like if you’re an alcoholic and you’re driving down the road and you see a billboard that is a big picture of your favorite alcohol, you are going to get that craving to go get a drink. Whereas someone like me, who doesn’t drink at all, it doesn’t even register in my brain. It’s not lighting up my reward center. So I just drive on by. But if I see a big billboard with donuts or cookies or cherry pie and ice cream, now maybe my brain is lighting up–wouldn’t I like that?!‍

DR. GOLA: It’s even more complicated because in the case of problematic pornography use we see that the parts of the brain–namely the prefrontal cortex–which is responsible for learning a variety of pleasures and cues of different pleasures–among those people who develop this pattern of problematic pornography use, it’s very highly occupied by cues which are predictors for pornography watching. There is an enhancement to learn other cues related to porn, but not related to other pleasures. So it makes it more difficult to derive pleasure from other things.

Then at some point, you are in a tunnel.‍

KRISTEN: All I want is porn.

‍DR. GOLA: Yes, exactly. ‍

KRISTEN: And that’s not conducive for a productive, successful, happy life.

‍DR. GOLA: Yes, there’s a lot of suffering and difficulties connected with maintaining a job, relationships, and also a lot of depression. Because if you have that experience of losing control over your life or over your behavior, it’s very depressing and very sad so there’s a lot of suffering.‍

KRISTEN: I honestly don’t judge those people. I have a lot of compassion for anyone who is pulled into any kind of addiction. My dad was an alcoholic and he was a brilliant attorney and it just took him down. And my mother also drank, but she could stop. She just stopped one day. So even though she used for quite awhile, she didn’t get addicted because she could just stop. ‍

How viewing pornography is shaping sexual preferences

KRISTEN: There are definitely differences in people and as we spoke before, there are other reasons to avoid pornography. Addiction is definitely a problem and no parent wants their child to be addicted to anything–video games or social media or any kind of substance abuse or pornography–because again pornography seems to be one of the easiest and most accessible drugs that we have. If you could get meth 24/7 for free delivered through your cell phone in your bedroom, we’d have a much bigger meth problem. So [porn] is definitely the drug that is most accessible to children and most harmful to their sexual scripts as well. 

‍DR. GOLA: This is a whole other topic–how pornography watching is shaping their sexual preferences, behaviors, and how this is happening on a mass scale. This is a topic for another hour.‍

KRISTEN: It is another topic, that’s true. It’s pretty frightening.

‍DR. GOLA: We know from research that kids who are watching more pornography, paradoxically they feel less confident when it comes to their first sexual encounters and they have much more anxiety around their performance during sex. It’s not this pure excitement and fun, there’s much more self-judging and comparing oneself to others.‍

KRISTEN: Yes. When I have spoken to teens, I have asked–boys and girls–do you really want porn to be the third partner in your marriage? Do you want to be comparing yourself with the people in porn when you’re having sex with your spouse? When they hear that, they say, “No, I don’t.” But that’s what happens. And I think that’s partly why it brings their confidence down.‍

What can parents do to help their kids avoid addiction?

KRISTEN: What would be your advice to parents to just wrap it up? How can parents ‘addiction proof’ their kids?‍

DR. GOLA: There’s no golden bullet and there’s no quick fix here, unfortunately. To do the serious ‘addiction proofing’, you need to develop a good relationship with your kids. And this takes time, it’s like gardening. You can’t just plant things and forget about it. You need to take care of it every day or on a regular basis. 

And a good relationship means that there’s a lot of trust, it’s not a judgmental relationship, there’s a lot of openness to understanding the differences in perspective, to seeing the same things in a different way. Such a good relationship is the best proof, because it helps to develop those emotional coping skills and the good skills to cope with stress and other difficulties in life. There’s nothing better.

And also this openness about conversation around sexuality, sexual experiences, needs and so on–it’s also very important. And this is something that we already see in the research. 

It doesn’t matter if someone is growing up in a conservative family or a very liberal family–what really matters is whether or not kids can talk with their parents about sexuality and the parents are not afraid to talk.

And what we see is important is that this relationship usually works the best between boys and fathers and girls and mothers–a same sex parent. And it’s difficult because a lot of people in our generations were not taught how to talk about sex, without taboo, without shame, without being embarassed. So that makes for a lot of self-education for parents.

Related: It’s Awkward, and It’s OK: You CAN Talk to Your Kids About Pornography

How to talk to kids about porn when a parent has a problem with porn

KRISTEN: Let’s say there’s a father and he has a son and wants to warn him, but this father has an addiction to pornography. He wants to warn his son and keep him away from pornography, but he feels like he’s a hypocrite for saying something. What would you say to that parent? And also what would you say to a mother who knows that her husband is not going to talk to her son, and even though it’s not ideal, should she just go ahead and do it anyway?‍

DR. GOLA: First, find provisional help so it’s not an issue anymore. Then it’s much easier to be open and to talk and to share the experience.‍

KRISTEN: So take some steps to try to get out of your problem. And as you’re taking those steps that’s going to help you feel more confident to talk to your children. I think that’s great advice.

Related: My Spouse Has a Porn Problem--4 Tips for Talking to Kids

Resources for parents‍

KRISTEN: Dr. Gola, where can people find more of your stuff? How can they connect with you if they want to learn more about what you’re doing?

‍DR. GOLA: The easiest way is through my website: www.drgola.online and you can just type it in your browser and there’s a whole list of my publications if you want to schedule an appointment and talk, then that’s also possible through the website.‍

KRISTEN: Thank you, Dr. Gola. We don’t talk a lot about treatment at Defend Young Minds because there’s such a huge range of different ideas about that, but we’re always grateful to talk with people who have done research and we’re so grateful that you’re sharing your knowledge with us and the Defend Young Minds community. 

I invite any of you who have watched this interview to share it with a friend and also to share the many resources that we have with Defend Young Minds which includes our guides. We have a guidebook called My Kid Saw Porn–Now What? We have a guide about how to start talking to your kids about pornography. Obviously we have the Good Pictures Bad Pictures books. 

We also have a new Good Pictures Bad Pictures Guidebook for Professionals, which is great for therapists and educators. It has 15 interventions–these fun activities–to do with kids to really help in treatment and to really help them internalize all the concepts that we teach in Good Pictures Bad Pictures so that they can really apply the concepts.

Dr. Gola, thank you so much.‍

DR. GOLA: I’m very impressed by your work and how many good resources you give to people. And I also want to say to everyone who’s watching I’m really happy that you took this step to educate yourself about pornography to protect your kids and this is very important.

KRISTEN: Thank you. We appreciate your time. 

Dr. Mateusz Gola - psychotherapist and neuroscientist helping individuals with addiction through clinical work and cutting-edge research. He is an associate professor of Polish Academy of Sciences and University of California San Diego. Leader in the field of studies on neuroscience of problematic pornography use. Author and co-author of over 120 research publications. In his free time, he enjoys surfing and meeting new people while travelling around the world. More info and appointment scheduling at: http://drgola.online.