For several years now, I have observed a significant rise in clients, especially
males, who suffer from massive fears of having pedophilic tendencies. Even
though these fears are often unfounded, they may cause intense symptoms like
massive emotional pressure and suffering or even lead to self-inflicted
injuries. In diagnostic terms, however, what most of these clients were dealing
with are in fact obsessive thoughts, a disorder that has to be clearly
distinguished from pedophilia.
In most cases, an initial event may be cited in which the
fear of possibly being a pedophile arose for the first time - e.g., physical
arousal at the touch of a young girl, a sexually colored dream, movie scenes
perceived as exciting or images that may be classifiable as pedo-erotic or
pedo-pornographic. From that moment on, one’s own thoughts regarding ‘young
girls’ or ‘young boys’ are observed very closely. For example, if an underage
girl crosses their way, affected people might examine carefully whether they can
sense any special emotional and physical reactions, or they might experiment
with fantasy scenes in their mind to get a ‘safe’ clue about whether a sexual
encounter with a certain girl in their neighborhood might make them feel
aroused. To a very high extent, they are also deprived of control over their
thoughts. Although they commonly don’t play out their fantasies and their real
sexual interests are directed toward adults, in their thoughts they always worry
about the worst case scenario, namely sudden and uncontrollable flare-ups of
real sexual feelings for minors.
Obsessive thoughts can take very severe forms that restrict
the quality of life. What begins with occasional, disturbing thoughts can reach
a level within a few years or even months that makes keeping up with a regular
life increasingly difficult and gradually takes away feelings of vitality and
joy. A major problem is that some patients want to verify in real life that a
pedophilic sexual experience would feel as exciting as they imagine it would.
This can lead to very awkward situations, influenced by strong taboo feelings or
even result in very real assaults on minors; which would then define the first
time this borderline had been overstepped in real life.
Such incidents would probably never have happened if these
persons would have looked for therapeutic treatment in time. But they are very
likely to involve legal and inner-psychical consequences. So unlike most other
forms of obsessive thoughts such as OCD where the cross effects on third parties
are generally relatively limited or completely absent, this particular form of
obsession contains a certain risk to initiate acts that put patients on the
borderline of undergoing criminal acts, or beyond.
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Live the happy life you planned! Richard L.
Fellner is head of the Pattaya Counseling Center in Soi Khopai and
offers consultations in English and German languages (after making
appointments at 0854 370 470). |
