What follows is a special announcement on behalf of a group being set up by people known and trusted by Heretic TOC. The subject is “therapy”. The track record of the mental health professions in relation to minor-attracted people has been so deeply unimpressive we might feel the best thing is to steer clear of them altogether. Thinkers such as Ben Capel (Notes From Another Country, Ch. 7) and Ipce’s Frans Gieles (Treatment, self-help and real therapy) have helped me keep an open mind. So I welcome this initiative and wish it every success.
I would like to draw the attention of the readers of Heretic TOC to a new group which is in the process of being formed: B4U-ACT UK. Many of you will know of the American organisation B4U-ACT. This a group of minor attracted people (MAPs) and mental health professionals (MHPs), whose main aim is to encourage the development of humane and professional mental health services for the minor attracted. Our British organisation has similar aims but will be run separately with its own projects. We already have one project in progress, in which one of us, Adam Powell, is involved in discussions with a leading provider of ‘therapy’ for MAPs, discussing with him what we see as the shortcomings of his methods.
One thing I would like to make clear is that just by virtue of holding discussions with MHPs, we do not endorse the idea that minor attraction is an ‘illness’. What we do think is that MAPs generally face problems in their lives owing to societal rejection of their sexual orientation and that a professional therapist with the right sort of understanding of these problems should be able to help. But what we tend to see in practice is not helpful humane therapy but rather a form of dogmatic and ignorant treatment aimed at convincing the client or patient that he is perverted, sick, cognitively distorted and so on. We want this to change, not only for the sake of the MHPs who turn to therapy, but also for the sake of the young people to whom they are considered to be such a threat (since we do not think that the marginalization of MAPs helps to protect young people—quite the opposite.)
Tom has kindly given me this opportunity to use this forum to ask if any of his readers would like to join us. We would be particularly interested in hearing from people who have had some experience of seeking therapy for their minor attraction—we would like to hear how it turned out. We are also interested in recruiting ‘activists’ – people who would feel able to do the kind of liaising work that Adam is already doing, though we realise that this is not for everyone. If you are interested in any way, do get in touch by E-mailing me at StephenJames465@yahoo.co.uk
Stephen James
I don’t know the history between you two guys, which is clearly fraught, but it occurs to me there may be bona fide, but differing, perceptions on both sides rather than anybody deliberately trying to misrepresent anyone else. There is no point in bad-mouthing Jeff for saying B4U-ACT has some involvement in “chemical castration” (an emotive term for a treatment which, unlike surgical castration, is reversible but it certainly is a “heavy duty” intervention with serious side effects, so there is a good case to be made for the slightly hyperbolic language) if that is true. I do not know your status in B4U-ACT, Barry, but if what you are saying is correct then Jeff has a very strong point.
On the other hand, it seems to me some MAPs are unwilling to face the possibility that some other MAPs really do, in their desperation (pace Gil some are suicidally desperate) behave badly towards kids, and it will be better all round if such people do whatever it takes to stop that.
My big worry, though, is that what may cause a MAP to opt for chemical castration is not bad behaviour towards kids but sheer terror of getting an inhumane sentence in an overly harsh penal environment, especially the U.S.
Tom,
If the “MAP” in question is worried about offending why not cover the leg of that person with a cast so that he doesn’t frequent areas with children in them? Isn’t that reversible?
For me if a person is in such bad circumstances then they need way more psychiatric help than prescribing an anti-androgen. Actually this would be the reckless thing to do as this person would be really dangerous and I doubt anti-androgens would help.
That is why I am saying that by siding with chemical castration, B4UACT seem like they have a hidden motive for using such a method. I think that B4UACT is insensitive about adults having sexual contact with children that they can’t see the severity of such a method. What makes sense is that they are fundamentally anti-sex. They would rather just use a screwed up method of chemical castration to avoid the whole issue with sex with children. I don’t understand where this fits in the model of helping a pedophile with their mental health. How can B4UACT advocate a complete therapeutic plan when they can’t nail down such a complex topic as chemical castration.
I think that there is much more than meets the eye with the issue of chemical castration for B4UACT.
Yes, there is a long history, so forgive me if my patience runs short after having explained the same things to the same person innumerable times.
Mine is a medical background. There is a place for medical treatment of persons seeking help to contain problematic sexual desires.
We all know there are existing discourses out there which are rather nasty – Nazis, Soviet Russia, etc. I do not want my conversation to be read as part of that discourse. I genuinely believe there is a role for medication used responsibly when dealing with problems of desire.
I do not want my freedom or that of others to be crushed under the weight of someone else’s point of view. If this is the objective of anyone with whom I dialog, I’ll not join them.
As I have said, my message is well known to Jeff. My audience is now more than merely Jeff. I ask a reader to recognize as a valid point of view.
If anyone has questions about B4U-ACT, please go the their website, and if necessary send a message directly to them. I don’t want to be the sole mouthpiece for them.
I want to thank Tom for allowing more than one voice to be heard. I hope we can all move on.
Barry said: “I genuinely believe there is a role for medication used responsibly when dealing with problems of desire.”
I do too. Thank you for clearing this up.
It is sad to see that an MAP such as Jeff wants to take away the freedom to chose treatment options from other MAPs who may find them beneficial, such as one young man who recently came to us seeking help. He had been on probation after he was released from prison for sexually assaulting boys, and during that time the state paid for him to receive anti-androgen medication. Now that probation was ending, he could not afford to continue the treatment and he was desperately asking for help to continue as he felt very strong urges to go out and assault another boy.
As if MAPs are not already overly straight-jacketed in what they can and cannot do, what is mind boggling is that an MAP such as Jeff would remove this potentially life-saving treatment option from this MAP in need. What in actuality would be punitive is the 10- or 20- (or more) year sentence the MAP could receive if he were to act out on his urges. That would also certainly be more deleterious to the mental health of an MAP than a reversible course of medication (which is also happens to be used to treat testicular disease and for birth control).
Even more alarming, however, is that Jeff, who styles himself a “boylover,” is more than willing to put innocent boys at risk from patients such as this. Mind-boggling indeed!
I’ve said (yet again) what I had to say. I will not respond again [TOC: SNIPPED: ABUSIVE.]
Tom,
I will attempt for the last time to post this.
I am quoting Barry on September 10 who said: “We support “chemical castration”? Now that may take more than a few clicks on our website to find out about since that phrase is nowhere to be found! While B4U-ACT has no official position on it, we do not support withholding any treatment options which an MAP, in voluntary collaboration with a qualified mental health professional, may decide to undertake.”
So voluntary chemical castration (if there is such a thing) is ok? So if a suicidal person asks for a gun from his therapist “voluntarily” the therapist would consult with him and hand him a gun? Why does B4UACT stand behind such a punitive method such as chemical castration?
As for Richard Kramer, he has been long gone from the leadership of B4UACT. His name isn’t there anymore for well over a year.
About Stephen saying that pedophilia is not views as an illness here is what B4UACT has on their website under Misinformation about B4UACT :”B4U-ACT’s position on the DSM is completely in line with the APA’s own position: that the DSM be based on high quality research (using representative samples rather than misleading prison samples), that it meet the needs of patients, and that it be revised with input from a variety of research disciplines and from minor-attracted people. Ascribing any position beyond this to B4U-ACT is inaccurate.” How could this be the case if B4UACT is “completely” in line with the APA when Stephen said in his original post : “One thing I would like to make clear is that just by virtue of holding discussions with MHPs, we do not endorse the idea that minor attraction is an ‘illness’.”?
Back to the chemical castration point, I don’t understand how a mental health organization can assume that it is beneficial for the mental health of a pedophile. Even worse is the rhetoric of Barry when he says that a pedophile can voluntarily castrate themselves. It is just mind boggling.
[TOC Adds: Glad you got through, Jeff. Your points are interesting. Hope I’ll find time to think and comment or that (preferably) others will respond.]
I’m not sure if anyone is still reading the replies on this blog entry, but I feel the need to mention that when B4U-ACT says:
“our position on the DSM is completely in line with the APA’s own position”,
we are referring to the APA’s position that:
“the DSM be based on high quality research, that it meet the needs of patients, and that it be revised with input from a variety of research disciplines”
It’s right there, you just have to read and remember the second part of the sentence. We’re trying to get them to adhere to their own positions on revision.
Obviously we are not in agreement with everything the APA says about pedophilia, otherwise one of our main objectives would not be to have them revise their definition of it based on our input.
Yes, Matthew, I too welcome this clarification, though again it still has to be explained to me what on earth people loving one another has anything whatever to do with the APA, or DSM, or mental illness.
The simple fact is that in some, primarily Anglophone common law jurisdictions it has been, and very recently, declared illegal for children under certain ages to engage in sexual activity with another person, and for anyone over a certain age to have sex with them.
The pretext for such legislation is primarily religious, presented in the secular sense not as belief but as moral philosophy, with literally tens of thousands of men and boys in the event, and some women, rounded up, incarcerated, and subject to the most horrendous interrogations, brainwashing, and in many cases media hysteria and public defamation.
The APA and DSM have not responded to this political situation with “high quality research”, they have acquiesced to it and included now illegal desire between certain people among their diagnostic criteria for “mental illness”. The fight in DSM 5 was to have that stigma removed.
High quality research, and in particular critical review of that research in, as we all know by now, Rind Tromovich and Bauserman 1997, revealed no evidence whatsoever of harm in adults loving children, and vice versa.
That dispenses with the science, and brings us back to the ideology and politics. One might reasonably think.
My long-standing view, and I have expressed this on and off over many years now, is that people who are mentally ill are not considered ill because they love someone but because they are unable to think clearly and act appropriately in their relations generally with other people.
Again, and I am not familiar with US or UK criteria, but here in Australia there are very few highly qualified psychiatrists registered to make such diagnoses. I know, because I work with them on and off and we discuss these matters. A GP can only refer a patient to such a specialist; they cannot diagnose their mental condition.
For psychiatrists themselves, DSM is no bible merely one reference among many. Any GP prescribing any medication whatsoever is under constant review, and as I made plain on another thread often restricted in their practice and placed under supervision when they exceed their brief.
For the remainder, respect for other jurisdictions, other countries, other cultures, other views and practices would be timely, not least in making available alternatives to what the Americans and the English prefer, but further in preventing them from recolonising the entire planet with their own stuff and as history has shown destroying valid answers to their own questions.
We all witness it happening here all the time, with people constantly being edited and censored when they present well thought-out rejoinder to the narrow Anglo-American view of the world, and object to the way they are being treated in response.
[TOC adds: Obviously, I do not agree with the last paragraph but I am not going to censor it just because I don’t like it. Snipping Gil is sometimes necessary to avoid personal insults and wasted time (repetition etc). It runs the risk that H-TOC will be cast as censorious but I don’t think any regular reader of H-TOC would come to that conclusion. A real censor would simply have shown Gil the door ages ago. As I have just been severely criticising Gil on another thread, I will add here that I feel this is overall quite a good post — certainly one of his better efforts.]
‘The APA and DSM have not responded to this political situation with “high quality research”, they have acquiesced to it and included now illegal desire between certain people among their diagnostic criteria for “mental illness”. The fight in DSM 5 was to have that stigma removed’
Well, it was actually the APA that published the Rind et al study, though their support for it when it started to get controversial was ambivalent at best. But the broader point is this. The APA sets the agenda in the States and so it is the APA that (the American) B4U-ACT has to deal with. And it isn’t a hopeless cause, as their earlier change of heart on homosexuality shows.
stephen6000,
If the American Psychological Association (APA) gets Federal Funds they cannot ignore the Rind Study that they published. They cannot ignore science and receive federal funds. The Rind Meta-analysis was determined to be science by the American Association For The Advancement of Science (AAAS) when it looked at the study and found its methods sound. AAAS is the premier science group in the USA.
If in fact the APA is ignoring the Rind Meta-analysis and not recommending to their members that its findings are incorporated in the therapy they give then our Constitutional Right to Due Process (Substantive Due Process not Procedural Due Process) is being violated.
Sure wish we had the financial ability to bring a case.
Linca
I agree, Linca. Calling all minor-attracted millionaires!
Yesterday I attended a Legislative Study on Sex Offender law in my state. The lead Sex Offender Therapist was there. He was mine. A man with the best of bed side manners: Friendly. However, he has nowhere in him any acceptance or use of the Rind Meta-analysis. He is absolute about no more offenses and that is of course how he classifies any sexual relations between minor and adult: Offense.
A law suit would blow his train off the track, much like what Lawrence of Arabia was doing with Turkish trains on the way to Medina in WWI. Oh, by the way there is good mention of Lawrence’s love Dahoum “The extremely bright and extraordinarily handsome” … “13-year-old donkey boy”, in Scott Anderson’s just published book, ‘Lawrence In Arabia’. By the way the carcass of one of those steam engines he blew up still lies in the desert for anyone to see.
Linca
[TOC adds: Sorry, Linca, for delay in approving this post. Seems I overlooked it.]
Tom,
I penned a lengthy post but for some reason I do not see it here. I tried to submit it a few times and it said that my post was a duplicate.
Any info about it.
[TOC responds: Sorry, Jeff, this is a complete mystery to me. This post has got through OK so it looks as though there is no huge problem. It should work, I’d have thought, if you post the original again but making a few small changes, such as by starting with the phrase “At the third attempt:”.]
B4UACT is a scam. This is all I am going to say. You have a lot of mouthpieces in your organization but your organization lacks substance. You are repeating what Barry has said and what he said isn’t convincing. I would not touch the subject of chemical castration with the 10 foot pole.
You guys think it is ok to have it as an option. Enough said about how you treat mental health.
How come all you guys do is belittle others here. If someone disagrees with your organization they become a target for attacks. This is displayed by Stephen, Barry, and now you Rick. What gives?
As far as I am concerned, it is fine to criticise B4U-ACT, or Heretic-TOC, or whatever, but preferably on a sound factual basis. Jeff, I still do not know where your chemical castration point is coming from. What is the source of your information? B4U-ACT’s Director of Operations, Richard Kramer, has long been very vocal AGAINST stigmatising and degrading treatments when posting on Sexnet, a forum to which I belong. It seems likely (though I have not asked him) he would put chemical castration in this category. It is of course possible that one or two individuals who have been associated with B4U-ACT might have expressed pro-castration views, but I think they are probably the sort who would soon decide B4U-ACT was not for them and who might gravitate towards, say, VP. In any case, such individuals (if any) could not be taken as an indication of the organisation’s policies, which one would expect to see written in formal mission statements or papers.
I have an idea that Rick and Barry may well be the same person. I would add that it is particularly unfortunate that both ipce and B4U-Act have in their midst an individual who so recklessly ignores many of the ‘Boylove Code Of Ethics’ statements on the ipce website.
Yes, me too . . .
Gil and feinmann0,
I am thinking about the line Jackson Bentley used in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, “Watch out for Allenby, he’s a slim customer ……”
T. E. Lawrence, he was one of us.
Last weekend on Book TV in the USA the young students at Tufts University asked Scott Anderson the author of ‘Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East’ (2013) how he could so deeply understand and identify with the Arabs. He only answered by saying there were certain men who could identify with the outcasts and the poor.
He did not mention Lawrence’s love for the two boys in the movie who were historical persons and Dahoum. Lawrence dedicated his novel ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ to Dahoum saying, “I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars to earn you Freedom…”
We need to get our therapy by engaging our enemies on the political battlefield: Satisfying to the max. We are important, important to the survival and prospering of man.
Linca
Indeed so, Linca. Very much so.
Had I not been so exposed to the condition of boys from childhood throughout remote inland Australia, a like desert landscape, and then at university run into such mindlessly cruel and dismissive attitudes toward them, I doubt very much that I would have grown beyond my early self-consciousness that there was “something wrong with me”, that had been beaten into me.
I wrote both my Honours theses 22 years apart on these themes, with 20 years of ongoing field research between the two to back up my argument, for very good reason.
There is not only an ability to identify and connect, there is compassion, and frustration, and in turn very real anger. I can understand and relate to Tom Lawrence, as I can Michael Davidson and James Barrie; considerably less so Andre Gide or Oscar Wilde.
Both Lawrence and Davidson had the courage of their convictions, which to me maps their difference and in that the very real difference they did make.
I wrote the definitive paper on Captain John Molloy, illegitimate like Lawrence except far higher up the Regency social order, who was Best Man at his Rifle Brigade friend-in-arms Harry Smith’s wedding to the 14 year-old Juanita, after whom the town of Ladysmith in South Africa is named.
I am sublimely grateful too, not only to Jim Barrie and Michael Davidson, but to David Lean whose 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia moved me greatly, as did his Dr Zhivago. He had them both right.
You will appreciate then my growing contempt for all the therapists and do-gooders getting in the way, who always ‘know better’, who presume to tell others what’s for their own good, yet who acquiesce to the idea that there is something wrong with other people that needs fixing, and act only to appease.
Sorry, my life, my right. Had any one of them spent any time at all inside they would know that it’s my time to serve, not theirs.
Tom, what has happened that your blog seems to have attracted more than its share of confused people? I’ll have to second the ignorant charge hurled at Jeff who appears to be unwilling or unable to comprehend the information presented about B4U-ACT and instead responds with the off-topic non sequitur of “chemical castration” which has been pointed out to him does not even appear on the group’s website and he has been the only one to bring it up. And no, B4UACT does not advise MHPs to “turn over” pedophiles who are having a loving physical relationship with a child. That would directly contradict their stated advocacy of safe mental health care for MAPs.
Linca is quite confused also. “Due process” refers to procedures guaranteed to those under criminal prosecution, not something doled out by psychologists. Furthermore, as a private organization, the American Psychological Association does not receive federal monies.
It is also ironic in his ad hominem attack that he would accuse Barry of being disruptive on BoyChat when he was recently admonished by the cogs there for the unforgivable crime of nick-linking against someone who recently collaborated with us. Response to B4U-ACT on BoyChat has on the whole been positive.
Tom, thanks for your support of the organization in the form of this post and that of B4U-ACT’s Science Director Glen Lamb from March 19th, http://tomocarroll.wordpress.com/2013/03/
I am happy that Barry (and B4U-ACT) has been defended, but this is not the place for flame wars.
Is that really true, Rick? I’d say H-TOC is a haven of coherent rationality compared to a great many forums.
Hello Rick,
Like you before I had Due Process explained to me last year I was totally unaware of another kind of due process than procedural due process (PDP). It is substantive due process. “Substantive due process (SDP) is a principle which allows federal courts to protect certain fundamental rights from government interference under the authority of the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The person who made me aware of SDP was an attorney now an Evolutionary Psychologist. After I listened to him explain the tie between members of the American Psychological Association and federal funds which there is. ( Simply Google “Federal research funding opportunities for psychology” and you will go right straight to the American Psychological Association website that lists 2013 Federal Funds Opportunities.) I got excited. However, my friend said he would not be interested in taking a law suit approach. He is now concentrating on Evolutionary Psychology which totally and scientifically backs up who we are as paedos.
However, I do have another friend who is a Constitutional Lawyer and is Director of our state’s American Civil Liberties Union. As soon as our state passes the unconstitutional law this coming year to prevent registered sex offenders from loitering near and entering parks in our state he will file suit. As that proceeds and succeeds I will then open up the idea of an American Psychological Association suit. He is passionate to the highest degree to defend the constitution and has other friends in the ACLU in Washington, D.C. who are likewise passionate. My strategy is all about timing. Don’t want to put too much on his plate now. Fingers Crossed his ACLU Membership doesn’t vote to muzzle him.
Yes I did do the unforgivable on BoyChat but I was immediately forgiven after I recognized what I had done and apologized to the cog. We get carried away sometimes and make mistakes, serious mistakes, don’t we Rick? Guess your view of the reception of B4UACT on BoyChat is different than mine: Glass Half Full vs. Glass Half Empty.
Best always as we deal with our lives as they are now and move together toward a better future for love.
Linca
There is some interesting Ev Psych theory in this area but I don’t know of anything to suggest any cut and dried scientific conclusions or consensus. Can you tell us — or can your friend tell us — what he means? What theory exactly? And what evidence? Your legal points are interesting.
Tom,
For all of that we are going to have to wait on his book. What I will do is see if he would like to open up a dialogue here or maybe back channel with you. I am taking an out of state trip over the next couple of weeks and will see him. I will let you know. Maybe what you will be able to do for him is encourage him along. That is what I do for him … could use some help. We all could … we need his work published.
And thank you for your encouraging remark concerning the legal theory.
Linca
Hi Linca,
I appreciate you distinguishing substantive from procedural due process, but I must reiterate that both cases apply only to legal cases under prosecution. Now if you were to sue the APA in court for some reason, then sure, you may be able to bring either of those to bear in some manner. I hope your friend does bring such a lawsuit, and I hope it will involve both APAs. (I see the APsychiatricA as even more at fault in all this.)
What comes up after the search you recommend is a list of federal funding opportunities for individual psychologists that the APA posts as a service for their members. None that I saw is for funding the APA itself, so my original statement on that issue stands.
Yes, we all make mistakes. Your apology is appreciated.
Rick
Rick,
I will bring up the maybe fatal flaws in his legal theory when he and I meet in a couple of weeks. See what he has to say. Let you know.
Fingers crossed this is not ANOTHER dirt road. Maybe if we go down enough dirt roads we will get to the highway.
Linca
Barry,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Chemical castration is not something to kid around with. It is akin to saying a patient needed a gun to kill themselves and the therapist decided to hand him the gun since it is in “in voluntary collaboration with a qualified mental health professional”.
B4UACT advocates for the mental health professionals to abide by the law. Isn’t B4UACT advising MHPs to “turn over” pedophiles who are having a loving physical relationship with a child?
B4UACT is far from being a mental health organization and closer to being “politically astute” as Tom has stated in a response earlier. B4UACT is not a mental health advocacy group.
Psychologists willingly and aggressively violate our right to due process. They ignore science and cannot do that and receive federal funds for any of their professional association initiatives. How can we ever cooperate with them? Psychology has to become a hard science an evolutionary science. It must drop normative. It must drop its essentially political basis. Then we can cooperate with them. Until then: No. Until then they are frauds.
Tom I think you are right. It is a small group pushing for cooperation with psychologists. Barry whatever his name is and I know what it is and can tell you he is not one of us, i.e., a MAP or for that matter a Psychologist has been a disruptive person on BoyChat pushing his program against much resistance to our well founded mistrust of psychology as it is practiced today.
Linca
[TOC adds: Careful, please, Linca. People are entitled to their views whether they are “one of us” or not. Non-MAPs can and do post here. I welcome them unless they are abusive. Also, robust advocacy (“pushing a program”) is fine as long as it is coherent, informative and not repetitive.]
It is rather sad that people like Jeff are simply too lazy and prefer to wallow in their paranoid fantasies of what B4U-ACT may be about rather than taking the few clicks to see what is actually the case on our website.
Tom, you asked Jeff for evidence for the three scurrilous charges he has made against us, and in response all he could point to is our name. Had he taken a couple of minutes, he could have found this:
“B4U-ACT’s name refers to the fact that it is crucially important for minor-attracted people, therapists, researchers, and citizens to think before they act in ways that could harm children, society, or minor-attracted people. Obviously, minor-attracted people should abide by the law because of the potential risk to children and themselves of doing otherwise. In addition, all people should recognize that no one chooses to be attracted to children, that these feelings typically begin in adolescence, that many, perhaps most, do not act on these feelings, and that minor-attracted people can and do live law-abiding lives and contribute positively to their communities. Therefore, vilifying them for their feelings is unjust and harmful; it forces them into lives of secrecy and prevents them from getting help when needed, ultimately putting children at risk.” (http://b4uact.org/misinfo.htm)
We support “chemical castration”? Now that may take more than a few clicks on our website to find out about since that phrase is nowhere to be found! While B4U-ACT has no official position on it, we do not support withholding any treatment options which an MAP, in voluntary collaboration with a qualified mental health professional, may decide to undertake.
We “guarantee to turn over MAPs to the authorities if any sexual contact is established between a child and an adult”???
How utterly absurd! This is not even possible since B4U-ACT is not an organization providing therapy itself. Furthermore, in the ten years of our existence, there is not a single person whom we have “turned over.”
While it is lamentable that such drivel even gets posted, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. I invite all those interested to peruse our website.
Barry, sorry I missed this thread but I wonder in which Asian country you are currently teaching English, or whether you have returned to the US finally to take up your post as (joint) mouthpiece with B4U-ACT, or to Europe perhaps with IPCE?
I know it can all be done online, like, but most of us do it from our home countries, from our home cities where we practice, and often from our universities where we are qualified and recognised.
My reason for asking is partly in response to Willy’s Tina raising questions about the mental health of mental health professionals, and partly because you state that you “genuinely believe there is a role for medication used responsibly when dealing with problems of desire.”
Avoiding Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, my question is rather on whether you feel that an extended holiday in Asia, traveling from country to country, is a valid and workable alternative to medication . . . supposing their desire for boys to be a problem to start with?
Not that I know anyone who does that, of course.
Tom and Sugarboy have done a good job of defending B4U-ACT against Jeff’s ignorant charges, so I’ll say no more on that for the moment.
Feinmann0 is right–we need more members. I would particularly like to hear from people who are currently active in mental health care. But anyone who is sympathetic and interested should get in touch.
Tom,
Their name is B4UACT: You can have the thoughts but you cannot act on them. Also they are for chemical castration which if anything indicates their views on sex. Ask them what are their views on the Rind et al report.
“Their name is B4UACT: You can have the thoughts but you cannot act on them”.
Not necessarily. It could just as well mean: “Before you act, you should keep in mind this and this and this” (in other word, “before you do something” could mean that you expect that something is going to happen, and not that it won’t happen). Had it been: “before you are considering acting” or something alike, then it would be different.
Maybe they have chosen a vague wording in order to get as many supporters as possible, who knows?!
Good point! There was a time when I was fully aware of that and equally suspicious myself. It seems I have been somewhat lulled into forgetting the negativity of the name by the nature of my encounters with actual members of the organisation. It seems to me there is a huge gulf between most people (or most of the ones I have had online contact with in the US) in B4U-ACT and those in VP: the latter really are zealots. I don’t mean B4U-ACT are flying under false colours. It’s truer to say, I think, that their political astuteness in the US has enabled them to have quite a positive impact — including successfully helping secure a better DSM definition of paedophilia which leaves not all paedophilia defined as a “disorder”. I could not say what their official line is on chemical castration, if they have one, or on Rind et al. Their leading figures, though, strike me as being in favour of sound scientific research, which would include approval of Rind et al. I would also point out that Prof. Michael Bailey once wrote a paper in favour of surgical castration. More recently, he very favourably reviewed my book on Michael Jackson’s sexuality, a review in which he probably amazed some of his colleagues by saying “Persuasive evidence for the harmfulness of pedophilic relationships does not yet exist”. All in all, I would caution against a rush to judgement B4U condemn!
B4UACT is fundamentally anti-sex. They can push their message forward because of being anti-sex. Most probably the MHP field accepts them on the basis that they guarantee to turn over MAPs to the authorities if any sexual contact is established between a child and an adult.
I doubt that B4UACT UK will be any different.
This is a strong assertion. What evidence do you have to support it? Are you sure you’re not getting mixed up with Virtuous Pedophiles, who are certainly anti-paedophilia.
I welcome this. My own experience of therapists in the UK has been truly abysmal – many of them mean well (and some don’t!) but they are for the most part woefully unprepared and unqualified to deal with issues around minor-attraction. When I saw a therapist in the south of England a few years ago I was presented with two options: either meeting with a “normal” therapist who would refuse to discuss the issue of minor-attraction with me at all, or else going to the Portman Clinic in London!! (It was explained to me that the latter option would be a lot easier if only I would admit to being an imminent threat to somebody.) My feelings about therapists and psychiatrists in general are not positive – to put it mildly – but if groups like B4U-Act can help mental-health professionals to be slightly less totally-clueless when it comes to dealing with MAPs, then I sincerely wish them all the best.
I agree with Kit – his experiences with mental health care professionals in the UK resonate with me. I intend to relate my own experiences in more detail within Stephen James’ B4U-Act(UK), not least to support the initiative as a first step, but also in the hope that others who read it are made aware of how readily the NHS breach patient confidentiality in their dealings with minor attracted people, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
“If groups like B4U-Act can help mental-health professionals to be slightly less totally-clueless when it comes to dealing with MAPs, then I sincerely wish them all the best.” However, ‘groups like B4U-Act’ can only succeed in what they set out to do with support and involvement from a critical mass of people. My impression is that the initiative comprises just two dedicated individuals at the present time, although I stand to be corrected.
I suppose its origins are in utter hopelessness and capitulation, but a paradigm seems to have been developing over the past few years, and especially on this forum in the last few weeks:
This self-defeating attitude is espoused by various “organizations” (which shall go unidentified, as it is not the purpose of this post to start a flame war) and, as purpleflower notes, is something that perceptive and rational BPM never can or should allow to divert advocacy for . . . truly virtuous [BPM who] will always stand for what they feel to the core of their hearts is true.
It is sad that forward-looking BPM activists and advocates now not only have to deal with the enemy without, but with the enemy who falsely claims to be within. But as I have observed previously, oftentimes “we” are our own worst enemies.
(Cross posted from BoyChat: http://www.boychat.org/ )
Observer,
Wouldn’t be wonderful if we could find a really rich paedo (BPM) to haul the mental health professionals and their professional organizations into the courts and make them answer for violating our constitutional right to due process?
How could those professionals that do that ever be trusted? How could we ever hope to get anything good out of them? They blatantly violate our constitutional right.
No trust comes from me. No trust should come from any of us BPM’s.
I think.
Linca
Brian finds an MDMHP/MinorDefectMentalHealthProfessional. http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=316
________________________________
Subversive tit Tina. Continues good TOC’s great 20th Century crusade, “The emancipation of (jurisdiction-varied) ‘children’ ”. “ACTB4UGrowUp-TheyCan’tTouchU4iT”/“OurBodiesOurChoiceOurMinds – MindYerOwn!” World ‘AAM’/Adultophile group and slogans. Untouchable by all Anglo bent-Cops/Media/Psychos/Charities. 1-EVIL Axis of freaks, geeks, spivs, thugs, mugs and morons insulting the intellect of a streetwise leg-humping happy pup. Gerr orf, yer lil sod ! Way beyond the all-Anglo B.S. Box of irrational body-guilt
Not so long ago there was no “therapy” – who ever heard of such a thing – the boys and girls simply went out on the town.
The mind boggles . . . what . . . it was on for young and old.
In Perth the entire three blocks along either side of the Roe Street Police Magistrates Court was one long brothel.
Don’t begin to ask me about Sydney’s King’s Cross.
I mean, what is all this bullshit, the unrelenting drivel we get these days?
Tom,
In the USA the track record of mental health professionals is in violation of The Fourteenth Amendment that reads, in part, that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That is more than just a “deeply unimpressive” mental health professional track record.
Let me try to explain. Under the theory of Substantive Due Process the American Psychological Association is required to inform their members that the Rind Meta-analysis is sound and the Rind Meta-analysis determined that two thirds of those studied reported either a neutral or positive experience. If the American Psychological Association does not do this then they are in violation of Substantive Due Process and will lose the Federal Funding they receive for their studies.
Science cannot be ignored by Congress or those that receive Federal Funding. The Rind Meta-analysis meets the definition of science. The American Psychological Association asked The American Association For The Advancement of Science (AAAS) for a review. The AAAS is the premier science group in America. The AAAS said they saw no reason to review the analysis because they found the study methods the researchers used were sound. This means the Rind Meta-analysis is science.
The Rind Meta-analysis has been done again with the same result. What I wish is that we had a billionaire paedo that would help us get this constitutional issue into the courts.
Linca
Thanks for highlighting this. Yes, I am aware of the situation, as is B4U-ACT in America, which is doing what it can to oppose unconstitutional therapy or, as we would say in Europe (and should also be saying elsewhere), therapy that violates human rights. The most egregious violation, and I guess this is what you mean, relates to civil commitment at the end of prison sentences which are also often unduly harsh by European standards but which at least have engaged due process.
This does not mean, in my view, that there is no role for mental health professionals.
Cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT), as widely practised in forensic settings, are almost inevitably coercive, and as such may be intrinsically incompatible with human rights. However, there are some circumstances (in the treatment of truly violent sexual offenders, for instance) when such methods may be justified if (a) they can be shown to be effective and (b) the offender can be released safely back into the community upon successful completion of a treatment programme. That way the offender gains and the community gains, but it all depends on the the (highly questionable) success of the treatment.
CBT is favoured these days because it is easy to standardise the programs so that therapists with relatively low levels of training can go by the manual, and the results (again thanks to standardisation) can be measured in terms of success or failure over time. This at least has the merit of being scientific but the actual implementation is often extremely crass and crude.
Much better than CBT in some ways (and here I agree with Ben Capel and Frans Gieles) are more humanistic client-centred therapies. It is much harder to judge their success scientifically and for that reason they are always going to be hard or impossible to justify in state-funded forensic settings. They are far more likely to have a viable role, though, outside of the criminal justice system for clients who genuinely want therapy to help cope with the stresses of living in a hostile society.
Up to a point, the favouring of CBT over talk therapy happens everywhere, for just the same reasons: more cost-effective, easier to standardise and measure, can be administered via book or computer rather than human being, etc. More humanistic client-centred therapies are harder to justify in any state-funded setting, not just in forensic ones. But as I understand it, whereas CBT is effective with a good chunk of the population over the short term, over the long term psychodynamic psychotherapy has been shown to work better. Also, I feel that the whole CBT approach may be wrong, or very easy to apply wrongly, for paedophiles. The idea is that you have distorted thoughts and that you must challenge them. E.g., you may think everyone is staring at you and thinking “what an idiot”, but really most people are thinking about their own problems and aren’t bothered about you, and if you bear this in mind you won’t feel so self-conscious. All well and good. But what does this turn into when applied to paedophiles? You may think it is OK to be attracted to children and that masturbation to fantasy is a harmless safety-valve, but this is a cognitive distortion…and there goes the safety-valve, making the poor paedophile more likely to blow a gasket.
Any comparative effects studies you know of?
Your comment goes right back to what I believe was the the original, non-forensic, and perhaps quite useful application of the concept. I wrote recently in a paper that is currently awaiting publication, “The term’s first application to people [as opposed to “distortion” when metal, etc, is twisted]…does not appear to have been in relation to sex offenders; rather, it is traceable to a book — which may or may not have been scientifically sound — by David D. Burns, about cognitive shortcomings such as “all-or-nothing thinking,” “overgeneralization,” and “jumping to conclusions” (Burns, 1980).”
What seems to have happened is that Eugene Abel just picked up this idea and ran with it: applied to sex offenders, the idea of “distorted” thinking sounds great from the POV of those who want to make the offender sound really bad: “twisted” and “bent”, also applied to criminals, have a similar emotive impact.
Here is a good discussion of the topic by Helen Pidd in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/jun/30/mentalhealth.socialcare
Thanks Stephen.
Let’s hear it for the billions of natural AAM/AAC/AAK.
Not yet Anglo-classed as ‘people’ or ‘persons’.
________________________________
Good points. Effective counselling for adultophiles is also needed of course. Ours is a different, though related, battle.
I trained as a Family Therapist in Australia with the Family Therapy Institute. On my own blog site I offer my perspectives on the climate and issues that I see as emerging out of our current situation. I agree with Stephen’s observation that a recommendation for a person to look at approaching a therapist does not require one to see minor attraction as an illness; the increased agreement amongst writers on sex that minor attraction is a sexual orientation supports this view.
Currently I am very cautious about the world of therapy and helping strategies because the theory that informs what is offered and the social and professional practices out there are deeply problematic. I know how hard it must be for a person who has a thirst, looking for a place to have a cool glass of water to help them cope with the heat, might feel when reading my message of “please do not accept every free offer for that much needed glass”. Of course one needs to appreciate how this problem becomes massive when you are required by a person in authority to sit in some room with people who are worse than incompetent, they are plain dangerous.
I presented a paper, “A model for health care delivery to minor attracted persons based in Maryland USA, lensed through ‘the unfortunate experiment’,” at the New Zealand Annual Conference for the Sociological Association of Aotearoa in 2011. What was argued was why clients in any health service strategy need to be part of the design and implementation of services directed at minor attracted persons (http://takearisknz.wordpress.com).
Having counselled, and been counselled by several Anglophone mental health professionals since 1969.
I can confirm that, some Anglo mental health professionls are themselves closet ‘Minor Attracted People’.
And who will counsel Mr Forrest’s ‘Adult Attracted Minor’ Mz seX; and millions more also natural, not-so-closet Adultophiles?
________________________________