Sexual Aggression Against Children Pedophiles’ and Abusers' Development, Dynamics, Treatability, and the Law

In Sexual Aggression Against Children: Pedophiles? and Abusers' Development, Dynamics, Treatability, and the Law, Drs. Blackman and Dring use multiple psychoanalytic principles to answer, ?Why do people sexually abuse children?? and ?Why are most abusers male?? They address the legal and mental health professions? minimization of the horrific nature of child sexual abuse, explain how to assess pedophiles? treatability, and discuss cases of adolescent and adult predators. Also, developmental analysis of sexual predation is integrated with a review of judicial decisions regarding civil commitment and punishment of abusers. The authors suggest how courts, evaluators, and legislatures can preserve constitutional rights of sexual offenders while prioritizing protection of children.

Introduction About the Authors I: Section A: What is the pathology of child sexual predators? 1. Some Words of Caution: Denial, Minimization, Projection, Hope, and the Wish to Help 2. What is Sexual Abuse? 3. Is Pedophilia an Illness or a Crime? 4. Why Males—and Can they be Treated? An Application of Modern Psychoanalytic Development Theory to Sexually Predatory Men 5. Why are Children Targeted? And can Children who Abuse other Children be Treated? 6. What to Look for in Pre-Predators: Signs and Behaviors 7. The Rare Female Sexual Predator II: Section B: Legal Issues Raised by Child Sexual Offenders 8. The Legal System’s Response to Child Sexual Abusers 9. The Juvenile Justice System’s Approach to Convicted Predators 10. Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment Statutes and Expert Mental Health Testimony. III: Section C: Bibliography (Referenced in the Text of the Book) IV: Section D: List of Legal Citation in Text V: Section E: Reading List (of Works not Referenced in the Text)

Jerome S. Blackman, MD, DFAPA, FACPsa, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Training Analyst for the Contemporary Freudian Society-Washington, DC, and author of three prior books from Routledge. He spent ten years consulting to Child Protection in five parishes in the New Orleans area, where he personally evaluated over 5000 cases of child abuse; about 2000 were alleged sexual abuse perpetrators. He was a state witness in juvenile, state, and federal courts, served on boards of child abuse shelters, and was designated by Louisiana as a Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Resource.

Kathleen Dring, JD, PsyD, attorney and psychologist, has, for the past 19 years, been a psychological consultant to the Child Protective and Foster Care Services of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia. Currently Secretary of the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, she has served as an expert witness in child custody and parenting cases in Virginia. She has also been called on by Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Chesapeake to furnish evaluations and treatment to families in need, and has been an invited speaker for educational seminars to judges, attorneys, mental health providers, doctoral students, and guardians ad litem.