What Is This Workbook?
Closer to the Screen, Far From Myself is the second volume in the Beyond the Screen Series. It is designed for adults who recognize a problematic pattern of pornography use and are ready to work more deeply with the emotional, behavioral, sexual, and relational conditions that sustain it.
Across 16 modules organized into four phases, the workbook combines clinically informed education with structured personal practice. You can use it independently or alongside therapy. Volume I is helpful for establishing a clear view of the cycle, but this volume also provides its own starting point and guides you from emotional awareness through long-term continuity.
Beyond Resisting the Urge
Changing pornography use involves more than stopping the next behavior. The pattern may be connected with emotions that are difficult to tolerate, loneliness, needs that feel unsafe to express, shame, learned permission-giving thoughts, and environments that make acting automatically easier.
This workbook examines those layers without treating them as excuses. It helps you recognize what you were trying not to feel, understand how the behavior chain unfolds, and practice responses that preserve choice. It also addresses sexuality, secrecy, honesty, relational impact, and the difference between receiving support and making a partner responsible for monitoring you.
How Does the Workbook Work?
Each module combines psychoeducation, guided reflection, structured exercises, and opportunities for practice. You will name emotions, examine loneliness and unmet needs, work with shame without collapsing into self-condemnation, map your behavior chain, move through urges, and revise the stories that give you permission to return to the pattern.
Later work focuses on changing your digital environment, developing sexuality grounded in presence and consent, distinguishing privacy from secrecy, responding after a lapse, and approaching relational repair without demanding a particular outcome. The final modules help you build support, translate values into observable actions, prepare for different levels of risk, and complete a continuing-recovery plan with a 90-day review.
What Does the Process Look Like?
- What I Was Avoiding: recognize emotions, loneliness, needs, and shame before seeking relief.
- Interrupting the Pattern: understand the behavior chain, move through urges, question permission-giving stories, and reshape the environment.
- Sexuality and Closeness: practice presence, consent, honesty, integrity, response after a lapse, and responsible repair.
- A Life I Can Sustain: develop support without transferring responsibility, return to values, prepare for high-risk moments, and continue reviewing the work.
Look Inside
This is an active workbook rather than a book to read once and set aside. The pages invite you to observe specific moments, complete written exercises, practice between modules, and return with new information. The sample pages offer a closer view of how education, reflection, and practical planning work together.
Educational material for personal reflection or use alongside therapy. It does not replace individualized clinical care, crisis support, or specialized guidance when safety or consent is at risk.
