Capstone Project - Essay Example

As stated previously, my capstone project is about teenagers who are addicted to pornography. However, most of the literature is about sexual addiction because the experts say there is no way to truly understand how much or how little a teenager uses pornography. As an example, Sussman (2007) points out that one of the reasons sexual addiction is difficult to understand is because human sexual behavior runs the gamut of interest and it is difficult to see what is “normal” or “abnormal” (p. 258) in this situation.

I also found it interesting that there are ethical considerations that must be taken into account when working with teenagers, especially when the study of sexual anything comes into play. It was interesting to me to find out that studies were not readily available on this specific topic. I hope that my research will at least add to this discussion in some way.

I think there were several aspects of the course that have helped me become more of a scholar-practitioner. I know that the research that I have done has created the scholarly piece for me because I had to find a variety of journals on my topic. Each time I have had to write a paper and find scholarly journals, it enhanced my curiosity and my ability to understand the literature.  I have also talked to many parents and young adults that suffer from pornography addiction and I was very surprised to find out that parents had found out about the situation with their teens. The literature states that most of the time parents do not know because their children visit porn sites when they are doing their homework or in other ways away from their parents. The parents I talked with were very concerned for their children and with their children, because they did not understand why they were so obsessed with these sites. Talking with parents and teenagers has also given me the information I need to make a positive contribution to social change. If I were to go forward and work towards my doctorate, I think I would do a more in-depth study of this issue.

There are so many issues that plague teenagers and they need people advocating on their behalf. Although many people are available to talk about addiction, sexual addiction seems to be one that slips through the cracks when people are going to counseling.  However, I also understand that people can only advocate for others for a short time until the individuals must also advocate for themselves. I will be working with parents and their teens and perhaps speaking at local schools as a way to bring knowledge to parents and teens about this addictive behavior; I may also speak at local schools.

One challenge that I had with the program is that it was very time-consuming and there was little direction as to what we were supposed to do. Since many of us are busy adults who have jobs and may be single parents, it would have helped if we had more direction from the beginning and throughout the coursework. Professionally, I understand that we are adults, but even adults need more direction especially if they have been out of school for a while.

I would tell future students that they need to become involved with the program from the first day of their first class. They will need to keep up with assignments and they will want to have an editor standing by to help if needed. There are many facets of the coursework that if they are not involved from the very beginning it is very difficult to catch up. Sometimes it seems like one will never get caught up once they are behind.