Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and The DSM
Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and The DSM
Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and The DSM
Fred S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D. Understanding Pedophilia and Other Paraphilias from a Psychiatric Perspective John Z. Sadler, M.D. Decriminalizing Mental Disorder Concepts Pedophilia as an Example Lisa J. Cohen, Ph.D. and Igor I. Galynker, M.D., Ph.D. Identifying the Psychobiological Correlates of Pedophilic Desire and Behavior: How Can We Generalize Our Knowledge Beyond Forensic Samples? Renee Sorrentino, M.D. The Forensic Implications of the DSM-Vs Pedohebephilia Nancy Nyquist Potter, Ph.D. Is Anybody Out There?: Testimony of Minor-Attracted Persons and Hearing versus Listening to their Voices Richard Kramer, Ph.D. The DSM and Stigma Andrew Hinderliter, M.A. Can the Medicalization of Sexual Deviance ever be Therapeutic? Jacob Breslow, B.A. Sexual Alignment: Critiquing Sexual Orientation, The Pedophile, and the DSM V
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Identifying the Psychobiological Correlates of Pedophilic Desire and Behavior: How Can We Generalize Our Knowledge Beyond Forensic Samples?
Lisa J. Cohen, Ph.D. and Igor I. Galynker, M.D., Ph.D. Director of Research for Psychology and Psychiatry, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Beth Israel Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY Objective: At present the DSM definition of pedophilia is highly rudimentary, consistent with significant limitations in our scientific knowledge about sexual attraction to prepubescent children. A solid understanding of the psychobiology of pedophilia is critical to inform treatment, prevention and public policy. Likewise, development of effective diagnostic systems, as in DSM V, is dependent on comprehensive research. However, the vast majority of research on pedophilia has relied on samples from forensic populations. This results in a skewed understanding of the phenomena of pedophilia and pedophilic desire, such that the specific correlates of pedophilic feelings are conflated with the traits of individuals who commit illegal acts. The purpose of this talk is twofold: 1) to present data from a research program studying the psychological correlates of pedophilia and 2) to consider future research directions in order to separate the factors contributing to the existence of pedophilic desire from the factors contributing to the acting on such desires. Elucidation of such factors should support the development of more precise and clinically meaningful diagnostic systems. Background: Pedophilic urges and behavior may be attributed to either aberrant motivation, inadequate inhibition or a combination of the two. The classification of pedophilia into true vs. opportunistic subgroups (also known as fixated vs. regressed or preferential vs. situational) may reflect the centrality of either motivational or inhibitory difficulties, respectively. Methods: A total of 51 subjects with pedophilia recruited from an outpatient center specializing in the treatment of sexual offenders, 53 opiate addicted individuals serving as patient controls, and 84 healthy controls were evaluated in a series of studies assessing personality traits, neuropsychological function and phallometry. Opiate addicted individuals were included as patient controls as we were interested in the concept of sexual addictions. Psychobiological and historical traits potentially associated with aberrant motivation include traits related to social anxiety and altered sexual history and function, including history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), lowered sexual arousal threshold, and reduced erotic differentiation. Traits putatively associated with impaired inhibition include impulsivity, propensity towards cognitive distortions, and psychopathy. Results: Our findings supported increased prevalence of CSA along with elevated propensity towards cognitive distortions and psychopathy in individuals with pedophilia vs. healthy controls. Pedophiles did not differ from controls in impulsivity. Compared to opiate addicted individuals, individuals with pedophilia had higher rates of CSA, more schizoid traits, and lower impulsivity and behavioral psychopathy scores. Pedophiles did not differ from opiate addicts on social anxiety measures, but did score higher than controls. On phallometry, individuals with pedophilia showed higher erectile response overall but no evidence of reduced erotic discrimination, with clear preference for pedophilic vs. adult female stimuli. Discussion: Individuals with pedophilia drawn from an outpatient forensic sample showed elevations both in traits related to aberrant motivation and to impaired inhibition, although there was less evidence of elevated impulsivity. Heterogeneity among these traits may reflect the degree to which pedophilic urges and behavior pertain to either aberrant motivation or impaired inhibition. Future research could evaluate a non-forensic population, particularly individuals with pedophilic desires who have never acted on their desires, in order to determine what psychobiological correlates can be linked to pedophilic desire in the absence of inhibitory failure.
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011 References 1. Cohen LJ, Galynker II: Psychopathology and Personality Traits of Pedophiles: Issues for Diagnosis and Treatment. Psychiatric Times, 26(6), 25-30, 2009. 2. Cohen LJ, Nikiforov K, Watras-Gans S, Poznansky O, McGeoch P, Weaver C, Gertmenian-King E, Cullen K Galynker I. Heterosexual male perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse: A preliminary neuropsychiatric model. Psychiatric Quarterly. 73(4):313-335, 2002.
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Is Anybody Out There?: Testimony of Minor-Attracted Persons and Hearing versus Listening to their Voices
Nancy Nyquist Potter, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY / President, Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry Genuine listening is a virtue, and one that is necessary if the voices of those attracted to minors are going to participate in the construction of the new DSM. Such participation is required in order to ensure that we have good science and ethical grounding that can go forward for diagnosis and treatment, while minimizing stigma and damage toward minor-attracted persons. To this end I make a distinction between hearing and listening and argue that those creating DSM-V need to cultivate a virtue in order for genuine listening to occur. This paper has three parts. First, I will argue that: 1) Hearing but not listening amounts to doing an injustice to minor-attracted persons. 2) Listener injustice (what I will refer to as testimonial injustice) is a result of prejudice, assumptions, and biases against the social identity of the speaker. 3) Testimonial injustice impedes scientific theory and practice that harms all involved in concern for and about minor-attracted persons. 4) Prejudice against speakers can be corrected by cultivating a virtuea virtue I call giving uptake. In the second section, I will set out the idea of uptake as a kind of genuine listening and explain why it is a corrective to testimonial injustice. Consider a familiar sort of exchange: How did the council meeting go? Were they receptive to your ideas? No, it was like talking to a wall. I didnt get any uptake at all. This common linguistic use of uptake disguises the depth and complexity of uptake as a virtueyet most people have a grasp of its intuitive sense. I unpack the philosophical idea of uptake as it applies to minor-attracted persons and explain how giving uptake will strengthen the construction of the DSM-5 as well as result in more ethical treatment of minor-attracted persons. Of course, speakers have to have certain virtues toonamely, that of accuracy and sincerity, and in the third part I discuss the responsibility of speakers to be trustworthy to their audiences. This paper is designed to open up the space for the appropriate giving of uptake, most immediately at the conference itself.
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011 Blanchard, R. (2010). The DSM diagnostic criteria for pedophilia. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Sept. 16 [Epub ahead of print]. DOI 10.1007/s10508-009-9536-0 No author. (2010). Pessimism about pedophilia. Harvard Mental Health Letter. July, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2010/July/pessimism-aboutpedophilia
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011 Gert, B. & Culver, C M. (2009). Sex, Immorality, and Mental Disorders. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 34, 487-495 Hinderliter, A. C. (2010). Defining paraphilia: Excluding exclusion. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2, 241-272.
Brief descriptions of presentation at: Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies B4U-ACT Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 17, 2011
Sexual Alignment: Critiquing Sexual Orientation, The Pedophile, and the DSM V
Jacob Breslow, B.A. Graduate Student in Gender Research, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders is currently under its sixth revision, and the current proposed changes put forth major revisions on how pedophilia is defined, diagnosed and understood. This paper approaches these revisions from within the critiques made by queer youth activism as well as feminist and anti-racist scholarship, framing the upcoming changes to the DSM with apprehensive praise and critical ambivalence. Within it I shall challenge normative assumptions about sexuality, personal and political identity, and childhood, both within the DSM and within wider society. One of the major changes attempts to establish a clear distinction between pedophilia as a non-diagnosable ascertainment, and pedophilic disorder as a diagnosable, distressing and non-normative disorder that requires psychiatric intervention. Allowing for a form of non-diagnosable minor attraction is exciting, as it potentially creates a sexual or political identity by which activists, scholars and clinicians can begin to better understand Minor Attracted Persons. This understanding may displace the stigma, fear and abjection that is naturalized as being attached to Minor Attracted Persons and may alter the terms by which non-normative sexualities are known. Furthermore, this paper argues that this distinction is potentially another step towards the complete re-thinking of paraphilias within the DSM a step that follows historically and theoretically from the removal of homosexuality. However, when approached with the queer and feminist lenses of mis-recognition and unintelligibility, the positive prospects of this division become quite muddled, exposing their entrenchment in problematic discourses of sexual ontology and deviance. Far from arguing for a total embrace of the upcoming changes, this paper works through the DSMs struggle to understand the pedophile through an investigation of the highly questionable and deeply assumptive clinical, empirical and theoretical studies it cites (Blanchard, 2009). These studies, some of which are the basis for the upcoming revisions, ignore or disregard their own limitations, and yet continue to make claims to truth and objectivity through problematic frameworks. Many tend to begin with the linkage of pedophilic desire to harmful and abusive relationships and acts, and end up proliferating, rather than questioning, normative gendered and sexual intelligibility. Finally, this paper frames the upcoming changes through a theory of sexual alignment critiquing the DSM for theoretically and empirically forcing connections between the blurry lines that connect (and separate) acts, desires, fantasies, and understandings of the self (Ahmed, 2006). The primary lens of critique for this paper is an in depth textual, discursive and theoretical critique of the DSM and its surrounding body of knowledge on children and pedophilia, focused on exposing the ways in which sexual acts and identities gain meaning and become known. References Blanchard, Ray. 2009. The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Pedophilia. in Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39. American Psychiatric Association. Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Orientations: Toward a Queer Pehenomenology in GLQ 12:4. Duke University Press: Durham, NC.