NCJ Number
149778
Date Published
1994
Length
301 pages
Annotation
Based on the author's therapeutic work with adults sexually attracted to children as well as adults sexually abused as children (often they are the same), this book examines the dynamics of particular cases of adults' sexual attraction to children and the kinds of treatment that are effective with many child molesters.
Abstract
The first chapter discusses the current cultural awareness of child sexual abuse. This chapter, entitled "We Are Half Way Through a Cultural Shift," advises that although awareness of child sexual abuse has increased, the awareness is accompanied by punitive and shaming responses that do little to change the cultural dynamics that have contributed to unhealthy sexual development. Most of the chapters discuss some aspect of unhealthy sexual development as children that contributes to "cross-wiring" that issues in unhealthy sexual attraction to children in adulthood. The author places much of the blame for unhealthy sexual development on a culture that has made sex secretive and shameful rather than positive, pleasurable, and constructive for human relationships when managed in ways that do not harm others. Case studies of sexual attraction to and overt sexual behavior with children examine the causes of the attraction and abuse as well as factors in the healing process. Although the author believes it important for sexual abusers of children to be held accountable for their injurious behavior, healing of the offender requires that a nonjudgmental, supportive environment facilitate a sharing and defusing of the feelings and psychological dynamics of the offender's sexual maladjustment. 44 suggested readings and a list of five support groups for sex addiction recovery