Children Exposed to Pornographic Images on the Internet: General and Specific Aspects in a Psychoanalytic Perspective

ABSTRACT

Online access to the Internet by minors is an increasingly widespread phenomenon, which offers a hitherto-unknown interactivity to children giving them easy access to pornographic images. These images can assume traumatic relevance, relating at the same time to the complexity of infantile sexuality. In this paper we investigate the phenomenon from a metapsychological point of view, highlighting the importance for the child to rely on an adequately present adult and pointing out that it’s not just the content of pornographic images, but the lack of contact with an Object, that constitutes trauma for children. This leads to take in count also the internal difficulties of the adult in facing these situations, with implications for our care practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Children; Internet, pornographic images; psychoanalysis; metapsychology of trauma

Notes

1. “Fantasy plays a big role in pornography (and indeed in human sexuality), so it’s only natural that people will desire seeing sexual scenarios involving the game characters they emotionally connect with. In April, when Fortnite’s servers crashed, searches for Fortnite on Pornhub increased by as much as 60% over a 24-hour period” (https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-review).

2. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/pdfs/ukpga_20170030_en.pdf, https://www.ageverificationregulator.com/.

3. This vignette is reported through the courtesy of Dr. Giulia Severi.

4. This vignette is presented through the courtesy of Dr. Giulia Prosperi.

5. See the following website: https://ideas.ted.com/opinion-forget-digital-natives-heres-how-kids-are-really-using-the-internet.

6. The nebenmensch is the person who listens adequately to the child’s call (the mother, certainly, but in addition, all the people who fulfill that function). This person must not be too close by, but will wait for the other as long as it takes. He is supportive but, above all, he is the interlocutor who accompanies the child, the one not yet able to speak, toward acquisition of the word, language, and intersubjective competence. The nebenmensch thus combines maternal and paternal attributions, given that the original encounter is a twofold one (Richard 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Franco D’Alberton

Franco D’Alberton, Ph.D., is a psychologist and child and adolescent psychoanalyst, full member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI/IPA). He worked in NHS services, first as a psychologist in the field of child mental health, then as consultant in Psychology at the Pediatric Department of S.Orsola University Hospital in Bologna (Italy). Initially aimed at adults, training in clinical psychology and psychotherapy has increasingly turned to children and adolescents and to family problems. He is currently working in private practice.

Andrea Scardovi

Andrea Scardovi, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, full member of the the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI/IPA). He worked in NHS services and at Bologna University, where for many years held courses on communicative elements of psychotherapy. He developed a training method to improve interview skills of General Practitioners, which was adopted in various Italian regions. Member of the editorial board of the Italian Journal of Psychoanalysis, currently he is working in private practice.