Couseling the Sexually Obsessed
Thought substitution is difficult when undesired thoughts have been entertained until they become desirable.
Earl Wilson
April 1, 1984
Taken from Sexual Sanity by Earl Wilson. (c) 1984 by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of the USA and used by permission of InterVarsity Press, Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. Sandy, my wife, and I had just settled down to watch the late evening news when the telephone rang. Reluctantly, I answered it. Phone calls after 11 P.M. are not usually good, and this one wasn't. Tom, one of my clients, was calling and very upset. "It won't stop," he said. "As hard as I try, I can't make the thoughts stop." Tom was downtown and had called in desperation because he was about to make the rounds of the adult bookstores. "I don't want to do that again," he said. "I don't want the guilt, but I just can't seem to get the thoughts out of my head." I knew the hell Tom was going through. Even though he had made progress, his resources at this moment seemed so limited. I rehearsed with him several steps he could use to overcome the terrible pull he was feeling. Tom began to regain control. Sexual desire is a taskmaster that can control and destroy us if we choose to serve it. Choosing to master, not to serve it, is difficult but possible. The key is accepting responsibility for our actions without blaming God or others. We often think we can't change because we filter our experiences to validate our beliefs about ourselves. People are experts at hearing what they want to hear so they can believe what they want to believe so that they can do what they want to do. Obsessional thinking invariably leads to this kind of selective perception. Undoubtedly this is what the prophet had observed when he wrote about people "who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear" (Jer. 5:21). In trying to change undesirable behavior patterns many counselors ...
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