The Netherlands is startled when pedophiles want to enter politics. Under the guise that the ban on sex between children and adults must be lifted, this party wants to stand up for the ‘injustice’ of children. Child pornography must be legalized and the age limit of 16 for having sexual contacts with adults must be removed. The reason? ‘Prohibition makes children even more curious’ and ‘Educating also means introducing children to sex.’
The child and the idea of the pedophile
Man in an immature state is how Van Dale describes a child. This means that a child still has to develop, both physically and mentally. It has to mature, so it may not yet be able to engage in sexual contact. Pedophiles explicitly cultivate an image of the child that says that the child is looking for a tender (sexual) exchange. In technical terms, this means that they project their own sexual needs into the child. They make no distinction between their own adult sexuality and the child’s natural, general need for attention. Because pedophiles do not use physical violence, they consider themselves extremely polite, cynically calling themselves child lovers, girl friends, and so on.
When tempted by a child, pedophiles try to adapt to the child. The pedophile descends to the level of the child, he plays with it and discusses it in detail. By empathizing with the child’s thoughts and feelings, he adopts them. Normal rapists try precisely to get the child to understand him, to make himself available to his needs. Because of this difference, pedophiles are strongly opposed to being counted among the rapists. The publications of their associations and their lobbyists constantly aim to justify this difference and present the abuse as innocent.
In my opinion, the result is the same: the child is overwhelmed and then exploited by adults and their sexual interests. Despite their claim that they empathize with the child, they are unable or unwilling to distinguish between their own feelings and those of the child. Because their life experiences make them feel close to children, to the child’s reality, they believe they know the specific child with whom they are building a relationship well. And yet that is not the case.
The numbers
There are many difficulties in collecting reliable figures. First of all, the taboo on sex with children and pedophilia is such that the provision of data by pedophiles and children related to them who have come into contact with the law and psychiatry is virtually excluded. There is belles-lettres about pedophile relationships.
The Danish Pedophile Association wrote in 1999 that it is impossible to count pedophiles because they will not answer honestly during an interview. They will not want to admit that they are pedophiles; many not even to themselves. The statistics regarding legal cases are unusable here, partly because only a small proportion of pedophiles come into contact with the criminal law, partly because the children have no interest in reporting the matter if the relationship is experienced positively. About three-quarters of the pedophiles we know prefer children of their own gender, i.e. man/boy or woman/girl. The rest are most interested in the opposite sex or in both sexes.
Does punishment make sense?
There has been a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of punishments for a long time. It has now been established that mere punishment through imprisonment or corporal punishment often has no demonstrable preventive effect and, which is worse, often has an unfavorable effect. Only strictly enforced life imprisonment and death penalty guarantee complete protection of the environment against the perpetrator in question. Naturally, no right-thinking person will demand that every offense involving sex with children and young people should be followed by life imprisonment or the death penalty. This means that (former) perpetrators will at some point find themselves in society or have to return to it. And in my view, this means that attempts to combine punishment with guidance and treatment, aimed at improving the offender and his resocialization, are warranted. Intensifying victim support is a dire necessity, but intensive guidance and treatment of perpetrators is also urgently needed.
The chance of recidivism
One of the causes of the current unrest is that various offenders, especially those who commit sexual offenses and acts of violence, often appear to repeat crimes. Gieles studied a meta-analytic study by Hanson and Bussiere, in which the data involved 28,972 sex offenders. These data came from sixty-one studies from seven countries. These were longitudinal follow-up studies after the end of the sentence. On average, the chance of recidivism for sexual offenders was 13.4%. For rapists the chance was on average 18.9%, for fornication with minors it was 12.7%. In 1999 it became clear that there were no national figures on the recidivism of sex offenders in the Netherlands. Research by the Ministry of Justice’s scientific research center among TBS convicts shows that 25% of sexual offenders commit another serious offense three to eight years after release. These are very rough indications that would require at least a specification of the type of crimes committed. Although the figures seem smaller than the sometimes mentioned sensational percentages of more than eighty or ninety, one reads again and again about people whose criminal behavior reoffended after release.
The effect of art therapy in forensic psychiatry
Art therapy is particularly indicated in the forensic clinic because it circumvents such resistance. Self-expression in a visual product makes clients less vulnerable because the expression is more acceptable to others. Pathological symptoms therefore decrease in a non-verbal, analogous way.
Two years after release from detention, 69% of the people who had received art therapy no longer had problems. In the group without art therapy this was only 42%.
Creative Body Language (SLT)
Creative body language is a method that aims to ensure that a rhythmic structure is created, which makes it possible to design interactive behavior for both the therapist and the client.
Take, for example, a client who suddenly jumps up furiously and screaming. The art therapist moves with him and jumps up violently for a few seconds. She names what is happening, for example; You’re furious, aren’t you! Then comes the most important moment; she stands still, she remains silent, she creates a pause of one or two seconds. She thus shows that she controls her movement (behavior). She is not at the mercy of his or hers. By dividing movement (behavior) into very small, clear time units, she gives it a rhythmic form. In this way she ensures that a joint interaction structure is created.
In SLT, emotions are understood as movement that makes the client move.
Emotional is considered healthy when it is embedded and has interaction structures that the client can adequately handle. Experiencing emotions is not the goal of SLT, but learning to handle them is.
The purpose of creative body language in pedosexual offenders
The general treatment goal of art therapy is to learn to make a concrete contribution to eliminating the risk of crime in order to protect society. This is done by influencing those personality aspects of the client that could potentially cause delinquent behavior in such a way that the client is willing and able to regulate them himself.
The first concrete treatment goal of SLOT-based art therapy is to create a therapeutic alliance and an individual art style. The resulting treatment goal is that the client has access to the most complete possible set of interaction structures. These are implicit neurological structures from early childhood that remain present throughout life. They regulate the interaction with themselves, another and something else (the other). They become visible through the characteristics of the interaction structures. From there we continue to build towards recovery. That is to say, the ultimate goal of the SLT is that the pedophile can direct his actions from within himself and in relation to his environment.
Between the beginning of the interaction structures and the end goal, the pedophiles go through different phases, just like a child goes through. They progress from a baby to a toddler, from a toddler to a preschooler, etc. This maps out where the pedophile’s development has stagnated and this is rediscovered through visual means and a new form is indicated. For example, a pedophile may have been belittled by his father in the past and never felt like a man. As a result, he does not dare to approach women, but he does approach young children.
This methodology also looks at how body language and design are depicted. When designing visual work, physical and emotional input is used. This commitment can be derived from how it arose between the ages of 0 and 5.
Conclusion
Looking back on my introduction, I believe that pedophiles only look at themselves and not at the interests of the child. Nevertheless, they claim the opposite and that, in my opinion, makes the treatment difficult.
It is not without reason that pedophilia is included in the DSM-IV. I believe it is a disease and I also believe it is a disease that you can learn to deal with. This requires insight, recognition and cognitive abilities, but above all the will to change and the will to work on the problem. If this does not work, in my opinion the pedophile has no right to walk freely through the Netherlands and will have to go through his life under supervision.
I also believe that every person is responsible for their actions in life, regardless of what happened to you. You have the choice of what you can do with this; you can make something of your life, you can also not do it and blame it on your past. I believe that parents of (young) children have the right to know who will live in their street, because the chance of recidivism, although the chance is smaller than it suggests, is there!
Regarding the creative body language, I believe that it could help pedophiles, provided they can understand the seriousness of their crime. I do not believe that abuse is still a major taboo and that abusers also have a hand in portraying themselves in the role of victim (think of the physiological reactions of the victims that confirm to the pedophiles that the victims like or enjoy it). that SLT pedophiles can take the first steps with the creative body language. I think that cognitive behavioral therapy, explaining thought patterns with the aim of gaining insight into one’s own behavior, is more effective. When the pedophile can face it, he will have taken a step further and will be more open to processes of change. The visual medium has the strong power to also reveal unconscious processes. Although the SLT focuses on emotion management, it does not focus on desires and feelings. I think this is a shortcoming of the SLT. Due to this shortage and despite the good figures on recidivism, I am of the opinion that the SLT is not completely evidence based!