Porn Addiction Treatment for Teens: When Professional Help Becomes Essential
Tiffany Herlin and guest Meredith Barney discuss the importance of seeking residential treatment for individuals struggling with problematic pornography usage. Oxbow Academy offers an evaluation period, clinical polygraph, and a family system approach to address problematic pornography usage. The program focuses on keeping students safe, involving parents in the treatment plan, and creating a functional, healthy family system.
As a parent of a teen, it's crucial to recognize when escalating problematic sexual behaviors necessitate professional intervention. Despite these challenges, commitment to change brings hope for growth and healing.
Join Tiffany Herlin, LCSW, and Meredith Barney, the Clinical Director of Oxbow Academy as they discuss:
- Ensuring proper care through an evaluation period, including clinical polygraphs and psychosexual assessments.
- How a sex-specific residential treatment approach can help facilitate lasting change with the students.
- The importance of strong family support and involvement throughout the therapeutic process.
Concerned about your teen's escalating sexual behaviors? Don't wait. Get the support you need now. Oxbow Academy can help. We offer personalized support for families facing these challenges. Call 855-676-4272 to learn how we can guide your family toward healing.
Introduction
Tiffany: Welcome for our last and final episode. My name is Tiffany Herlin, LCSW,, and I'm interviewing Oxbow Academy's clinical director, Meredith Barney, who's an LMFT, SUDC, and CSAT I. So she has quite a bit of experience that she brings to the table.
Please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for therapy. Please always seek a mental health professional for your specific situation.
Okay, this is our final episode. It's been such a pleasure talking to you.
Meredith: Yeah, you as well.
Tiffany: I love talking about your family systems perspective. It's very refreshing. Often as a clinical social worker, it's not that I don't include it, I just forget. It's your main focus and I love that part of it.
Identifying the Need for Residential Treatment
Tiffany: So let's talk about, how do parents know they need to seek out residential treatment? They've tried outpatient. The problem is continuing, in fact it's escalating. They're really concerned for their teen.
Meredith: Yeah, I think that this is a really important piece to touch on because, just because my kid watches porn definitely does not equate to needing residential treatment.
So when we're looking at an assessment for a kid that would be at a residential level of care, we're looking at different criteria. Are we seeing involvement in child sexual abuse material, which is breaking the law? If so, is law enforcement involved? Is there an escalation in the porn use and the kind of porn and the amount of porn that's being used? Are my kids stealing women's underwear and wearing them?
Tiffany: This might sound weird but that does correlate sometimes with the two things.
Meredith: Absolutely. Is there sexual abuse or trauma that maybe we know about or we don't know about?
Tiffany: Or suspect?
Meredith: Or suspect? Yeah.
Tiffany: That screen hunger, addictive behavior is escalating. Maybe they have anger outbursts that are just really scary when you take the screen away, right?
Meredith: Yes, and how are they impacting relationships with us as parents, with their friends at school? Is it impacting their school work? The more we see impacts in all these different areas, those are the cues that maybe we need to step up to higher levels of care and need a complete check out from electronics to really work on getting these behaviors under control.
Tiffany: Yeah. And as a parent, you don't necessarily need to know what kind of pornography they're viewing. Maybe you're having a hard time tracking that. Maybe you're not ready to view that and you wonder how big of an issue is this? And you're seeing these other yellow or red flags. Oxbow actually offers an evaluation.
Evaluation and Assessment at Oxbow Academy
Meredith: Yeah, so at Oxbow we have an evaluation period where the boy comes in and we work with the client on gathering all their sexual history and understanding what they've been through and what they've gone through. We then take that information and we actually have them complete a clinical polygraph.
Tiffany: So when you say clinical polygraph, what do you mean by that?
Meredith: It means we take them to a polygrapher who helps them validate their truth. We don't use a polygraph to catch them in a lie. What we use a polygraph for is to validate their truth, which with these kids, a lot of times they've been unvalidated for many, many times in their life. So we say, "Hey, we believe you and this is how we can believe you."
Tiffany: Yeah, because sometimes they'll be like, "I'm finally telling the truth." And it's like, "Great, let's prove that to your parents, to everybody," rather than, "We're going to catch you in a lie and throw you in there with a polygraph." Often what parents see in movies and things like that is dramatized.
Meredith: Way dramatized. And actually, we work with a licensed clinical social worker to create a level of safety with the boys when they are going to get their polygraph.
Tiffany: After the clinical polygraph, the parents actually choose a psychologist to do the testing and that's not in-house at Oxbow, which means they're not biased to do the evaluation of what they need, what kind of treatment they need, what they are recommending?
Meredith: Yeah, because Oxbow is not always going to assess for this level of care. And so we want to catch those ones before they continue on with our program because if they don't assess for that level of care, it actually can be more harmful for them to go through the program. And so it's really important that we make sure only kids that are appropriate go through our program.
Clinical Polygraph and Psychosexual Testing
Meredith: And that's where the psychosexual testing comes in.
Tiffany: Yeah, we've talked about the evaluation and all of this on other seasons on this podcast before, but I think it's good for parents to realize that if your child has escalated and you're concerned that they might sexually act out and have engaged in deviant and risky behaviors and cross that line, or they already have, Oxford is a great place to start and reach out to because of that evaluation.
I do want to take a step back and educate our listeners on what an educational consultant is and how they can also be helpful in this process. So an educational consultant is great for families who are looking for a residential treatment placement. For these educational consultants, this is their career, this is what they're trained for. They go and they visit each and every one of these residential programs, they create relationships with them, so you're able to cut out all that hard work of having to go online and try to figure out like where to even place your kid and who offers what and specializes in what. They're going to guide you and also be an advocate for your family on where your child would best get the help they need.
And so, I highly recommend them and they're worth your time and your money if you're in the spot and you are considering looking at a residential treatment center. I want parents to realize that that's an option as support for them out there as well, if they're at this point.
Meredith: It's a great resource.
Tiffany: Yeah. Why should a family choose Oxbow over another residential program?
Meredith: One of the main things is because we actually have that evaluation period. I don't know of another sex specific program that has an evaluation period. We want to make sure the kids that are there are appropriate for what we're doing.
Tiffany: I think that's a huge relief for a lot of our parents who are scared to send their kid away. Their kid has a scary big issue. It's like a breath of relief for our parents to be like, "We're going to evaluate to see if they really actually need us." And you're right, that's not offered anywhere else that I know of.
Sex-Specific Treatment and Family Systems Approach
Meredith: The other thing is that we are sex specific. We are working with sexual behaviors and helping them understand what's unhealthy and healthy, helping them understand their shame cycles, there's so many cycles, and that's what we do.
Tiffany: Well, and the staff and the whole culture is set up to be specific towards this issue. So the staff are trained to know how to keep the students safe because you're dealing with such a difficult issue. A lot of parents' concern is, "Is my child going to be safe if I send them away to deal with this particular issue?"
And so Oxbow has learned over the years what things to look for, what to train their staff on and if they miss something, then they figure out where their blind spot was and how to make it even better and more safe and continue that process. They're continually evaluating and improving.
Meredith: Yes, they are and it's really cool to be a part of that and actually have a voice in that and seeing the shifts and changes to just create a better trauma informed therapeutic space for the kids.
Tiffany: Yeah, and then I think you bring to the table such an awesome family systems approach to the clinical team.
Meredith: Yeah, we definitely are focusing so much more on the family system, taking deeper dives in, trying to heal the whole and not just the one. And that is my favorite thing.
Tiffany: It's allowed. And look, it's backed by research and it's proven over the years that that's what needs to be happening.
Meredith: Yeah. Something I'm really excited and really proud to be a part of is all the family work and all the shifts that we're doing and creating, again, to just continue to move forward and grow and do better constantly.
Tiffany: How does Oxbow use the family system approach in therapy and how does it help with particularly problematic pornography usage?
Meredith: So when the kids first admit into Oxbow, kind of like what we just talked about, they're going to have an assessment done. We're gonna do what's called a disclosure and the clinical polygraph and then we'll get the psychosexual assessment and see if they even need that level of care.
So let's say that psychosexual assessment comes back and says they do, they're a moderate to high risk and they need to be at this level of care.
Tiffany: And they need sex specific treatment.
Meredith: Yes, sex specific treatment. We then take from that psychosexual assessment and we create an individualized treatment plan based on that assessment that was given to us.
Family Involvement
Meredith: That is where the family work comes in. We're going to go in much more specifically at that stage.
Tiffany: Having family therapy once a week and individual therapy, what does that look like for our families at Oxbow?
Meredith: So the students get one individual and one family session a week and then twice a year we have Oxbow family days, where parents actually come and engage with the students doing in person group therapy, equine therapy. Parents can get support. There's very specific parents support groups at that time. Parents also can expect a weekly parent support group that is just for parents of kids at Oxbow so that you can feel less alone.
Tiffany: That's amazing that that's included because parents need it so much, especially if you're at that level of needing this type of care.
Meredith: Absolutely. And so, we're looking at the treatment plan and the treatment plan tells us when a student is getting close to going home and what that looks like.
And when that happens, when they're gearing towards the end of their treatment plan, we start looking to transition them to Independence House, where we reintroduce technology in a controlled way. We start giving them space. If they're going to struggle, and they all struggle, there's always steps backwards, but we're doing that in a controlled environment where they're supported.
And the parents can have that initial reaction of, "Oh, my kid messed up after being in treatment at residential." And they get to go through their feelings in a supported way, just like the kid gets to go through his feelings in a supported way.
Tiffany: It's like a test.
Meredith: It is like a test, a loving test.
Tiffany: I love that you have those Oxbow family days because having the families come on campus in person and doing family therapy with a therapist or equine therapy or whatever activity you're having them do, is going to be so much more eye opening and allow for greater change. And if families do come to visit, from my understanding, you guys also do in person therapy sessions with them too, right?
Meredith: Yes. If people can come to campus, that's definitely an option that we do. And it's highly encouraged.
Tiffany: Yeah. So family involvement is huge throughout day one to the very end.
Meredith: Yeah. And we didn't even touch base on the parent portal. And the parent portal is where parents can actually send messages to their kids. Kids create goals every week with their parents. The family is heavily involved and it's that way for a reason.
Tiffany: Yeah. And including social weekend phone calls. And so, parents are asked to do as much work as their child's doing. Not to scare off our parents if you're at that stage, but remember what we talked about, that change and healing doesn't really happen if the whole family system isn't willing to look at themselves and make those changes. We can't just change that one person.
And ultimately, the goal of Oxbow's family therapy is to help the child feel like they're not alone and they're working together as a team with their family to heal, right?
Meredith: Yes, the team thing is really important. It's us together.
Tiffany: What are some of the themes you talk about in family therapy?
Meredith: Some of the main points we like to hit, especially at the beginning, is we want to start looking at the family tree, the genogram. We want to map out what the family looks like. Are there multiple sets of parents? What was happening two generations back? Is there a history of mental health issues? Is there addiction?
Tiffany: Maybe a history of pornography usage?
Meredith: Yes. We want to be looking at the bigger picture here when we're looking at a genogram. When we start looking at the genogram, it opens up conversation about what are the roles within the family dynamic.
For students, what role do you think you play?
For parents, what roles are you guys playing? Who's the rescuer here? Who's the enabler? Who's the hero? We want to start looking at that because all those roles serve a function in a family system. This is functional. And we want to create a functional, healthy system. And so identifying out what all those things are is really important.
One of the other things we talk about is the rules of the family. Now this isn't just spoken rules. Like, “Don't do this, don't look at porn.”
Tiffany: Not the explicit ones, but also the implicit ones.
Meredith: Right, the unspoken rules. And those are usually really hard for parents and kids to actually identify. Kids are actually usually better at it than their parents.
Tiffany: I believe it.
Meredith: And so, as a therapist, one of my jobs is to actually start identifying what the rules are within the system and pointing them out so we can start shifting and changing them. "Oh, with your role here, it looks like you're in charge of your mom's emotions right now. How does that feel for you?"
And helping the kid identify and being like, "Do you want to do that? No. All right, mom, what do you need to do?" It's those unwritten rules, which is the process, that really are so harmful for our kids. We don't talk about sex. Sometimes that's specifically said. Sometimes it's not said at all, but the message is there.
So those are some of the really important things that we talk about and really pay attention to, especially in that evaluation phase because we wanna map that out because even if you're only there for the valuation time, we wanna make sure that we're still starting that work around the family system, even if they don't end up staying at our program.
Message of Hope and Success Stories
Tiffany: What is one thing you wish every family who came to Oxbow knew?
Meredith: That even though things might feel overwhelming at the time, there is hope and that there is growth. If people put in the work and fail and keep trying, there will be a forward, upward trajectory. I've seen it for 11 years and it's a really beautiful thing.
Tiffany: Yeah, and that even though it feels dark and discouraging and hopeless, there's absolutely hope for healing for these families. I've seen it as well.
Meredith: I wish every family knows that there's hope for the future.
Tiffany: I agree. And having worked at Oxbow for so many years in various roles and specifically as a therapist, I've seen so many success stories myself.
One particular student I worked with initially had problematic pornography usage problems, and also it was starting to escalate into sexual behaviors and posing some risky things that really could affect not only himself but others. And his parents were really nervous and came in with so much shame and were scared.
And he was struggling as well with being adopted and attachment issues. And so there was all this going on with the family system and getting to work with them. And he was struggling with also trying to figure out his sexuality.
Over the time that I worked with him, it was so great to see the family grow and to work through their family system and to get to a point of more transparency and honesty and communication and providing safety for their son to be able to grow and figure out as he explored and tried to figure out what a healthy sexual outlet looked like.
And now we’re getting to see that this particular student has moved on with their life, graduated college, and been successful. In fact, they are in a really healthy relationship and married to a person. It just brings me hope and joy that there were things that this student had done that could have led to a legal system, that could have led to a much different outcome. And now he's living a successful life and had a second chance. And it just brings me so much joy and is why I love what we do.
So for our listeners, please know there's hope, there's healing. If you're at this point where this problem has escalated or is escalating, you're not alone. And there are people out there going through similar things and there are professionals who can help you. So know that there's hope and healing.
Thank you for listening. And Meredith, thank you so much for joining us.
Meredith: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Tiffany: It's been awesome. Thanks.
You Have Questions, We Have Answers. Your Call is Confidential.
Contact us if you need help with treatment for sexual addiction, sexual abuse, pornography abuse, and other compulsive behavior issues.