Sexual Violence

[Seagreen]

My therapist told me that acts of sexual violence stem from within the person and perpetrators don't usually respond well to treatment. Ive also heard the same said for pedophiles. Do you think this is true? Does this mean they can not change?

 

[Anarchy]

I suppose it depends on whether the behaviour is learned or is a wiring problem.

Male sexuality, fear and agression all pass through the amygdala.

We know from studies of toxoplasma infection in rats, that the parasite can rewire a male rat's amygdala so that instead of a fear response to the smell of cat piss, the rat becomes sexually curious about the smell of cat piss, and the toxoplasma gets itself into a cat's guts - the only place where it gets to have sex with others of its kind.

Ref:

A person whom I know has a genetic identical twin who is a full on psychopath (and abuser), the guy whom I know isn't, which shows that the same genes and same environment are not sufficeint cause for psychopathy, a third factor must be present. The person whom I know, suspects that brain damage, perhaps during birth, might be a necessary third factor.

In the case of the brain damage hypothesis for psychopathy, perhaps it is the lack of inhibitions rather than an urge which causes the problems.

The question is then, whether there is sufficeint in their heads to absorb and retain inhibitions if inhibitions were taught to them?

I don't know.

If the behaviour is learned, even if it is in the form of acting out traumas - then yes, I think that probably is treatable.

 

[greenleaf]

I have had discussions with various people over the years about this... treatments are always changing so the future is open. However, my take on this is that it's very hard for people who were victims of abuse to change and heal; generally we want to though we often don't have the right help. The relevant thing though is that it's extremely painful to work on abuse issues.

I think that statistics show that most abusers were themselves abused. So, they have that wall of pain to face in order to change. However they *also* have a really horrible twisted wall to face in terms of what they themselves have done to other people. They often seem to have developed cognitive twists that justify this behavior. More pain to face that. Pain all over the place, and their current behavior gives them very sick but "positive" feedback, from my experience.

So, my strong feeling is that most will not change because some deep part of them doesn't believe that getting through all that pain is possible, or worth the end result, or something. So, they won't really want to at a deep enough level. (and watch out for ones that claim to be changing to get the victim back in place for more abuse.)

This is just my guess based upon my understanding of current theories, working on myself, knowing other survivors, but also observing several abusers for many years.

 

[scout86]

I've had this conversation with my T. He says that the problem, for the most part, is that they don't see a reason to change. In their way of looking at the world, they haven't done anything "wrong" and they really don't understand what all the fuss is about. Take "Why can't you just get over it?" to the Nth degree. They don't feel remorse because they can't see the problem. He says that they CAN change, but the first and biggest road block is to get them to understand that their behavior hurts other people and to CARE about that fact. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that, but I believe it's the truth.