Forensic Child Psychology by Fanetti Matthew; O'Donohue William T.; Fondren-Happel Rachel & William T. O'Donohue & Rachel Fondren Happel & Kresta N. Daly

Author:Fanetti, Matthew; O'Donohue, William T.; Fondren-Happel, Rachel & William T. O'Donohue & Rachel Fondren Happel & Kresta N. Daly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Understanding Pedophilia

Goals of this chapter:

To become familiar with the concepts of pedophilia and child molestation.

To understand how pedophilia is diagnosed and treated.

To understand the legal and social impact of pedophilia and child molestation.

“Pedophilia” is a combination of two Greek words meaning children (pedo) and love or attraction (philia). The love or attraction involved in this word refers to an adult's sexual or erotic attraction as opposed to an adult's normal attraction or love of children in which the adult regards children are “cute” and perhaps wants to be around them based on this feeling, nurture them, and make sure they are safe and healthy. Pedophilia belongs to a larger class of mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) called paraphilic disorders. Para means outside and again philia means love or attraction. The basic idea is that individuals suffering from this group of disorders have a sexual attraction or orientation that is outside the norm.

In pedophilia the adult finds children sexually arousing and usually has sexual fantasies about children and, in the typical case, desires to have some sort of sexual contact with the child. Pedophilia, unsurprisingly, is considered a mental disorder in the DSM-5 (APA, 2013). (It is also important to note that there is another technical term, hebephilia, which indicates an attraction to individuals—early adolescents—that are still regarded as too young for an adult to be attracted to them—say 14- or 15-year-olds. Hebephilia is an attraction to postpubescent adolescents who are still below the legal age of consent in the state, which admittedly varies tremendously across states. Despite the efforts of some, hebephilia currently is not considered a mental disorder in the DSM-5 and thus hebephiles are regarded as pedophiles.)

It is useful to actually examine the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for pedophilia (APA, 2013, pp. 697–698). Basically, the diagnosis of pedophilia involves four specific criteria:

The person has had to experience recurrent and intensive sexually arousing urges, fantasies, or behaviors involving sex with a prepubescent child (13 or younger) for at least 6 months.

This individual was disturbed by the events described in A or acted on them.

The individual is at least 16 years old and at least 5 years older than the child that they are aroused by.

And then there are subtypes, specifically: Only attracted to children vs. also attracted to adults.

Which genders they are attracted to (just girls, just boys, or both).

And then whether it is limited to incest.

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