From: drarwingnutte@gmail.com   
      
   What Science Reveals About Pedophilia   
      
   by Casey SchwartzDec 7, 2011 4:45 am EST   
   As high-profile pedophilia cases rivet the nation, psychiatrists uncover   
   fascinating new details about the mental illness, from how offenders justify   
   abuse to striking patterns in brain scans.   
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   Amid the past month's disturbing revelations about child sexual abuse at Penn   
   State and Syracuse--and the debates over morality and complicity and   
   punishment--it can be easy to forget that pedophilia is a mental illness, and   
   that legally, it only becomes    
   a crime when acted upon. Yet the key to preventing and treating the disorder   
   may lie in its clinical details.   
      
   Among psychiatrists, views on pedophilia differ. Some researchers liken it to   
   an addiction, others to sexual orientation; still others put their faith in   
   brain scans. Yet pedophilia is consistent in the criteria that define it:   
   erotic desire directed    
   wholly or partially towards pre-pubescent children, typically under the age of   
   thirteen. And for reasons not definitively established, there are undeniably   
   more male than female pedophiles; by some estimates, men perpetrate as many as   
   94 percent of    
   sexual offenses against children.   
      
   Studying the disorder is complicated by the fact that, in the U.S., laws that   
   went into effect in the 1990s require therapists and physicians to report to   
   child protective services (and other authorities that vary by state) anyone   
   they believe poses a    
   threat to a child. The legislation trumps patient-doctor confidentiality in   
   these circumstances. Since reporting a potential pedophile results in legal   
   action, the law has deterred many pedophiles from voluntarily seeking   
   psychiatric help--which troubles    
   some researchers, since the disorder can be easier to prevent than treat.   
      
   As a result, almost all research on pedophiles is based on convicted sex   
   offenders--those who have already acted on their desires--most of whom are or   
   have been in prison. As Judith Herman, a psychologist who works with abused   
   children at the Victims of    
   Violence clinic in Boston told The Daily Beast in an e-mail: "Truthfully, I   
   don't think the psychiatric profession has much of a clue about pedophiles.   
   Most studies are based on...the 5 percent who get caught--a very   
   unrepresentative group." In other    
   words, most pedophilia research subjects are outliers.   
      
   pedophilia-disorder-schwartz   
   Patricia Curi / Corbis   
   Still, a small community of psychiatrists is working to better understand the   
   disorder--work that could ultimately help to prevent the kind of suffering   
   we've recently come to hear all too much about.   
      
   Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist and director of the sexual behavior unit at Johns   
   Hopkins, is one of the country's best known and respected researchers on   
   pedophilia. In his view, knee-jerk moral condemnation is beside the point. "We   
   don't know why we    
   experience the sexual desires that we do. For so long, we've looked at it as   
   if it's simply a moral issue--people are supposed to have certain   
   attractions--and often society said if you experience a different kind of   
   sexual temptation or feelings, you're    
   not as morally worthy a person," he said. "It's not someone's fault they have   
   the condition, but it is their responsibility to do something about it.   
   Telling me that someone has pedophilia is like someone saying about me that   
   I'm heterosexual. It doesn't    
   tell you whether I'm kind or cruel, introverted or extroverted, caring or not   
   caring, intelligent or not intelligent."   
      
   Berlin stresses the diversity of the pedophiles he's worked with. "There are   
   people with pedophilia that are often in denial, the way some alcoholics deny   
   having a drinking problem," he said. "There are some who believe that society   
   should change, and    
   that we shouldn't insist that they not act on their attractions. In my   
   experience, that's been a minority. There are others who are desperately   
   looking for help to try and make sure they stay in control, and many of them   
   are very pleased to learn that    
   there's a medicine that might help."   
      
   Indeed, one of the few treatments these patients can seek out is medication   
   that lowers testosterone levels, to blunt the intensity of the erotic desire.   
   Clinicians also sometimes prescribe anti-depressants, both to address   
   co-existing psychiatric    
   problems and for the common side effect of lowering sex drive. They also often   
   recommend psychotherapy that involves cognitive-behavioral methods, to   
   challenge patients' skewed belief systems.   
      
   Judith Becker, a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Arizona--who   
   has evaluated more than a thousand pedophiles--conducts this kind of therapy.   
   She commonly asks her patients to consider how old they felt when they were   
   engaging in sexual    
   acts with kids. For some, she says, this question has been an "aha moment,"   
   helping them realize that, in their involvement with children, they've   
   actually regarded themselves as being of the same age as their victims. During   
   these encounters, Becker    
   said, it's as if they slipped back to a much earlier phase in their own   
   development--or perhaps never graduated beyond it in the first place.   
      
   Becker has also studied how this perception plays into the so-called   
   "grooming" of victims widely reported in the media in the wake of the Penn   
   State scandal. Pedophiles will often spend months insinuating themselves into   
   a child's life, taking them to    
   ball games, showering toys and gifts on them and becoming a part of the   
   child's universe--to the point where a child can't recognize that a clear   
   transgression has occurred when the interaction turns sexual. Or if the child   
   does feel uncomfortable, he or    
   she may still feel entangled with the adult and fear losing the relationship.   
      
   Yet according to Becker, the elaborate process isn't exclusively about the   
   sexual gratification they expect to gain from the effort. The bonding itself   
   is a source of satisfaction, since many pedophiles identify so strongly with   
   children. During therapy,    
   Becker will attempt to facilitate relationships between pedophiles and other   
   adults, helping them gain the social skills they often lack.   
      
      
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