Fanfiction comprises stories created by fans that reuse characters, settings, or narratives from existing media. It has become a ubiquitous form of online creative expression with significant cultural, psychological, and clinical implications. Fanfiction communities include millions of users worldwide. Nevertheless, adolescents’ and emerging adults’ use of fanfiction often goes unaddressed in assessment and treatment.

Fanfiction can be beneficial or problematic depending on the client’s characteristics, context of use, and the content involved. Engagement with fanfiction has been associated with identity exploration, creative expression, emotional coping, community belonging, and informal socialization—especially among marginalized adolescents and young adults whose identities are underrepresented in mainstream media. These potentially positive functions, however, may coexist with risks. Erotic or explicit narratives may depict sexual violence, normalize unhealthy relationship scripts, or serve as maladaptive outlets for problematic sexual fantasies.

Emily Hilliard developed this training for professionals who work with adolescents and young adults whose problematic sexual behaviors have brought them into treatment or supervision. In these cases, the central question is not simply whether fanfiction is “good” or “bad,” but how it interacts with development, cognition, social learning, and risk.

In this training, Ms. Hilliard reviews how fanfiction may relate to sexual scripts, understanding of consent, and impulsivity. She explains how professionals can pair cultural literacy about fan communities with evidence-informed practice. The training equips attendees to distinguish normative creative engagement from maladaptive or risk-laden patterns, tailor interventions, and engage clients in developmentally and ethically sound ways. Ms. Hilliard:

• Provides an overview of fanfiction culture, terminology, community practices, and nuanced issues that may arise in clinical and correctional settings.
• Demystifies fandom language and terminology.
• Explains major fanfiction platforms and their content-moderation features.
• Grounds the training in research on user demographics, popular themes, and patterns of engagement with explicit content.
• Explores the different functions fanfiction may serve for clients—including coping, creative expression, identity exploration, and potential risk—and how those functions may intersect with treatment goals and supervision conditions.
•  Offers practical strategies for discussing fanfiction use with clients.

Ms. Hilliard presents a 10-domain assessment framework for evaluating clients’ fanfiction use, identifies eight categories of intervention, from monitoring and cognitive restructuring to supervision conditions and content restrictions, and applies these tools to case examples involving justice-involved clients with histories of sexual offending.

Interactive Follow-Up Meeting

Attendees are invited to join an open discussion 15 minutes following the end of the training, where you can engage with fellow attendees by turning on your camera and microphone. This is an opportunity to share your experiences and contribute to a meaningful exchange of ideas. Time will be allocated to address questions or insights from the training. Please note that attendance is optional and will not affect your eligibility for a training certificate.