Author: Muafia Bashir
Pedophilia
is a sexual disorder; a person is sexually attracted to youngster less than the
age of thirteen. It is a severe mental disorder where a person has powerful
sexual urges towards a child (Tenbergen et al., 2015). A pedophile is fascinated towards children either
the boy or girl. They generally have a preference for the contrasting gender
child. Some are interested in a child who is well-known to them. Archetypal
pedophile lacks pleasure in mature sexual relationships and found to have low
self-worth. Therefore, sexual desirability towards a child is dominating within
pedophile life. Most of the males are pedophiles as compared to females (Kruger and Schiffer, 2011). As people have less awareness
about this disorder, its identification is tough.
For identification of this, given
standards according to DSM-V should be fulfilled.
•
Minimum for six months, persistent, extreme sexually arousing fantasies,
and sexual desires or sexual activities with a prepubescent/preadolescent
child, usually under the age of 13 years or younger.
•
The individual has done with these sexual impulses or fantasies, and it
causes significant distress and difficulties in personal life.
•
The individual is at least the age of 16 years and at least five years
older than the child to whom he is doing this.
Etiological Factors of Pedophilic Tendencies
Psychosocial dynamics have a vital
part for a person to be a pedophile.
Pedophilia is fantasized for a child,
as he is considered psychologically immatured. A study exposed that due to
fetal anomalies, a pedophilia man has a double ratio of a head injury after 13,
which disturbs the cognitive functioning (Geer et al., 2000). They have less IQ and delayed recall
memory. Outcomes of the study also depict that attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder may be present besides left-handedness between pedophiles (Blanchard
2002).
Another cause maybe, if a person
fails to dominate his sexual partner, then he does this with children since the
child is a feeble and much smaller. He considered the child a non-threatening
partner. So, he spits out his anger on a child.
A person who has abusive child
history may have the tendencies to be pedophilic in the future. Most pedophiles
have sexual histories in childhood extending from 40% to 100% (Kuban, 2004). A randomly selected sample of men stated that those who were sexually
abused as a child is more probable to have 40 times sexual interaction with
child lower than the age of 13(Bagley, Wood, & Young, 1994).
The pedophilic disorder runs in
families, but there is no indication whether the genetics factors play a
crucial role to be a pedophile. Based on these pieces of evidence, we can say
why a person sexually abused a child.
Brain Images of Pedophilia
Brain scanning of a pedophile
presented that differences that have been noticed in the pedophilia are related
to change in frontal and temporal lobes.
The frontal lobe refers to the
orbitofrontal cortex. Orbitofrontal cortex is accountable for rational
thoughts, decision-making, feelings as well as behaviour control, explicitly
preventing the sexual behaviours. Malfunctioning in this portion is
interconnected with sexual behaviour disorder linked with pedophilia (Bechara, 2000: and O’Doherty, 2003).
The temporal lobe plays an important
role that may lead to a pedophile. Disturbances in temporal lobe connected to
the hypersexuality seen in pedophile (Schiltz, 2007: Ponseti, 2012).
Treatment
The person who is identified as
pedophile refuses to get treatment. He feels shame because societies don’t
accept such people. Most don’t involve any treatment procedure, but those who
wanted to gain treatment have to face societal taunts.
Medication and psychotherapy can help
in controlling and managing the behaviour of a pedophile.
Different medication therapies are used
for treating pedophiles. Medicines are most effective in handling such people.
The combination of psychotherapies and conventional treatments might bring
positive results in the management of pedophilia disorder (Rice & Harris,
2011).
Androgen deprivation therapy is a
drug intervention which controls the male hormones, especially the
testosterone, which decreases the sexual desires.
Gonadotropin-releasing, hormone
agonists are a collection of drugs that lessen the sex hormone, which is a
superior method for treating pedophiles.
Anti-depression medication can also
be useful to some extent in treating pedophilia disorder.
Hormone therapy is optimum for the
decline of sexual impulses so that they become more willing to participate in
psychotherapy (Hall & Hall, 2007).
Furthermost, psychotherapies are
cognitive behaviour therapy and behavioural therapy, which consist of empathy
training and rearranging the distorted and divergent thinking and behaviours.
Cognitive behaviour therapy focuses on
altering the thoughts and behaviours, which are maladaptive and generates
problems. CBT is centred on the idea that how we think (cognition), feels
(emotion) and act (behaviour) all collaborate. Primarily, our thoughts govern
our feelings and behaviour. Negative and unrealistic thinking can be painful,
and source of problems. When a person experiences mental stress, how they
infer, alter the circumstances, which in turn has an adverse influence on the
activities they carry on. Cognitive behaviour therapy is primarily concerned
with restructuring the pedophile’s thinking via numerous approaches and helps
him to eradicate his stimulating thoughts toward children (Berlin & Krout,
1994).
Behavioural therapy emphasis on
existing problematic behaviours also to underpin the desirable actions.
Behavioural therapy is a mixture of different therapies approaches such as
behaviour skill training, empathy training and empathy training which focus on
changing the behaviours, which are problematic. Aversion therapy is a form of
behavioural therapy in which negative consequences are linked to each pedophile
immoral thinking about the erotic deed. In this therapy, a person is evaluated
for imagined thoughts, e.g. if he drives these fantasies, then he can be
arrested, or punished.
Interpersonal therapy or family therapy is
very significant. These are attachment-focused therapies that concentrated on
solving interpersonal problems related to family members and partners.