CalamityJane wrote:dlowan wrote:I would have thought it obvious that we do if the burglar is committed to manage his impulses, and is seeking assistance to do so.
Also, I think you are making a very significant error in your thinking...you are equating intent with desire.
I desire not to go to work ever again (sometimes), I desire to grab that lovely scarf which I cannot afford from the shop, I desire a Lippizaner horse, I once greatly desired a sexual relationship with a married colleague.......I do not intend to follow through with any of these desires.
dlowen, desires of materialistic goods is in my opinion not comparable
to sexual fantasies involving children. Even desires or fantasies of a sexual relationship with another adult is perfectly acceptable, however,
sexual desires towards children is in my book an abnormal thinking process that cannot be helped through therapy. Usually, sexual desires/fantasies about children will become intent, and statistics are unfortunately here to prove this. You cannot rehabilitate pedophiles,
and not the ones who have tendencies towards pedophilic actions.
That's a lot of very adamant stuff based on very little known fact, as far as I can see. What do you know of ALL the people who have some desire towards children?
Many people have some desires towards children...not all act on them.
And...what do you mean by rehabilitate?
Do you mean that they no longer have such desires, or that they do not act on them?
What do you see as the proper attitude towards them, btw? You say you have no compassion....do you have some explanation for why they have these abnormal thoughts?
I am also interested in what all this stuff that floats around (or has here, recently, somebody going so far as to state that having compassion for somebody meant approving of their actions...) re not having compassion.
Here's a thing.....many people who have sexual feelings for kids were eroticised to kids of that age because they were abused themselves at that age.
Are we to have no compassion for them? These were the very kids that people seem to think having no compassion for their abusers somehow benefits, or that seems in some way to be the argument...? Is it? Why do people seem to feel having no compassion for someone is somehow a good? If I have this right...I am really interested to understand this.
So....some of these kids for whom we are, I assume, allowed to have compassion, grow into these people for whom we are not, it seems, supposed to have any?
Then there are all the kids and adolescents who have sexual feelings towards younger kids...as far as the research tells us, for a varirty of reasons...(which I can detail for you, if you like.)
Research suggests there is a pretty good rate of successful treatment for them, but it seems you would not agree with this? I was listening to research stats from the adolescent program here, who were saying that theirs are not unusually good...but I didn't write them down. One of the most important parts of treatment for these kids is full acknowledgment of what they have done, and what they wish to do, and I congratulate the guts of people who can face that side of themselves, and change it.
You know, "real", habitual, paedophiles are some of the saddest people I have ever met.
I was talking to one of the detectives in our local paedophile task force the other day ( I am treating one of his target's little victims, who is now targetting younger children than himself), and we agreed that there is something in the air around them that sucks your life force out....kind of like black holes... And their stories are some of the saddest I have ever heard....and I feel like I have heard them all...
The saddest thing of all is how some of them are so damaged by these experiences...(for many of them the attention and affection they got from their abuser/s was pretty much the closest thing to love they ever feel they got) that they have, with that ability we humans have to make ourselves believe that what we want is a good thing, made themselves believe that their abuse of kids is good for them.
These people ARE dangerous predators....and kids need to be protected from them....if this means permanent prison, so be it. I still feel lots of compassion for them in their terrible blighted lives, though, at the same time as they drive me nuts...especially when I read their twisted propaganda on places like NAMBLA type sites, or hear their ravings in court.
I don't work with these folk, so I do not know if you are right that no treatment can ever help them to at least control their impulses.....I would be highly suspicious both of those of them who claim to be in control and "safe", and also of your utterly absolutist statement.
For adults, it is certainly a damned hard thing to change....in my experience it is not impossible...it is certainly not impossible for younger people.
But anywho, that was not the question of the thread.
That was a much simpler one....if we desire, but do not act, have we done wrong.
In my view, it's a bummer if we have those impulses, but if we really do not act upon them, then no foul.
Edit: THis proly sounds fiercer than it is meant to....I have been getting increasingly more horrified at stuff about not having any compassion for people, and seeing them as monsters and such.....I would expound on this, if anyone were interested, but in short hand, I think that condemning people out of hand, and trying to deny the commonness of their feelings (while thankfully some of those feelings are not commonly avcted upon) is psychologically unhelpful, and practically dangerous, as people find it hard to think rationally about and seek help for feelings that it is taboo to acknowledge......also, in terms of whether we act out dangerous feelings or not, our abiity to reflect upon them, {nd not hide them away from ourselves, or dangerously fixate on them,}is very strongly tied to positive outcomes. I hope that bizarre sentence is clear! I can explain this addendum at better length if anyone wants me to.
So...sorry if i sound fierce, my fierceness is not aimed at you......and I am very interested to understand your points better.)