Treatment to Decrease Attitudes and Beliefs Supportive of Pedophiliac Behavior

When individuals behave in a manner that is counter to societal norms, they frequently lose self-esteem and become anxious or depressed about what they have done. The fewer people in an individual's environment who are aware of the commission of pedophiliac acts, the more easily the perpetrator can rationalize such acts. Pedophiles molest children in secret. They develop various rationalizations and justifications for that behavior (Abel et al. 1984; Murphy 1990).

Because pedophiliac individuals do not discuss these false belief systems with others, they have minimal opportunity to correct their faulty rationalizations or cognitive distortions. Three methods have been used to confront these distortions and normalize pedophiliac persons' cognitive beliefs regarding child molestation: cognitive restructuring, externalizing cognitive distortions, and victim empathy training.

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring is necessary in treatment to address pervasive denial and minimization (Nugent and Kroner 1996). The cognitive distortions of one pedophiliac individual are usually quite different from those of another, as these attitudes and belief systems develop idiosyncratically and are not checked with others. In cognitive restructuring, pedophiliac patients (generally in a group) list the reasons why they believe their acts of child molestation were justified based on their own belief system. Once these lists are developed, they are exchanged in the group so that each patient reads another patient's list. Each participant begins to discuss why the distortions on the list before him or her are incorrect and logically unsound. The therapist sometimes role-plays being a pedophiliac person with the belief system expressed by one of the group members, and asks the group members to develop counterarguments against the role-played attitudes and beliefs.

In cognitive restructuring, special attention is given to the issue of consent, especially the inability of a child to consent to participate in adult-child sexual behavior. Common cognitive distortions (Abel et al. 1989) of pedophiles are also reviewed and critiqued by group members to normalize the pedophiliac patients' justifications for molesting a child.

Six weeks later, Harold began cognitive restructuring. Harold wrote down the following cognitive distortions:
1. Since Andy doesn't have a father, he needs somebody to be close to him and take care of him, especially in a physical way.
2. Andy is a young teenager and needs to learn about sex from an appropriate source like me. Otherwise, somebody might try to take advantage of him.
3. Andy never asked me to stop. He never said "I don't like this; I don't like what you are doing," so he must have liked it.
4. I was a stranger to Andy. I had never seen him before and he had never seen me before. I was surprised when he acted so friendly toward me, and then I realized that he was looking for someone like me to be a father figure. Father figures talk to their sons all the time about sex.5. Andy did not squirm, did not move my hand away, did not walk away from me; therefore he must have enjoyed it. After all, he is a teenager and teenagers usually enjoy being stimulated in a casual way.6. All I did to him was massage his legs after a game of baseball. I was trying to be thoughtful, and people are making a big deal out of nothing. I didn't plan on touching his penis; I was watching TV and my hand happened to run over his penis area. I didn't really see what I was doing because I was so engrossed in what I was watching.7. It's not like I put my penis in his rectum and attacked him and beat him up or something. My hand happened to run over his penis and that was all. It's not like you read about in the papers. There were no bruises, I didn't hold him down, I didn't tie him up, I didn't cut him up or anything.8. My dad used to coach baseball and used to rub my legs after practice so that I wouldn't get cramps and my muscles would stay loose. I was thinking that there was nobody to help Andy in this way and even though my wrists were sore and arms were tired, I thought I could be nice to him and keep him from getting any cramps.