child abuse – Licensed Mental Health Counselor

Studying A Pedophile: Part I

12 Oct 201612 Oct 2016by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

When it comes to avoiding certain types of people, even in jail, child abusers, child molesters and pedophiles usually make the top of the list.

At my job I deal with these individuals everyday. There is no way around it and on top of that I have to try to remain unbiased and nonjudgmental which isn’t always easy. I have a three year old son so sitting across from someone accused of killing a toddler and showing unconditional positive regard has at times been one of my greatest challenges.

As a mental health professional, I had to learn how to separate my personal feelings from my professional job and one way I’ve learned to do that is by intellectualizing the situation. That allows me to look at the situation in a rational, interesting, matter of fact way and remove all personal emotion.

That’s what I did today when I sat across from yet another pedophile. It was towards the end of the day and I really did not feel like doing the assessment, but it had to be done so I asked myself, what made this man sexually attracted to children?

Interviewing A Pedophile

This individual was one of the more forthcoming and open pedophiles I have ever talked to. He wasn’t denying his issues or charges, nor did he seem to minimize his actions like most. For the most part, he seemed to take responsibility for what he had done.

Most pedophiles I talk to either deny everything despite the insurmountable evidence proving their guilt. Or, they blame the victim for seducing them, like one married man I spoke with who blamed a 10 year old for causing him to leave his family and run off to another state with her where they were caught in a hotel room.

Talking to this particular man reminded me of the first time I met someone with schizophrenia who was insightful enough to tell me about her hallucinations and how she was able to distinguish what was real and what was not. It was an eye opening experience, better than any book on abnormal psychology I had ever read and it helped me work more efficiently with other clients suffering from psychosis.

What Is A Pedophile?

When most people think of a pedophile they envision a creepy old man or some other odd person. However, from shows like To Catch Predator, we know that most pedophiles are regular neighbors, friends, religious members, family members or even teachers like the individual I spoke with today.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), pedophilia is defined as intense, recurrent sexually arousing fantasies, impulsive desires, or behaviors involving sexual acts with a child and that occur over a period of at least six months.

In most situations, the pedophile is at least sixteen years of age and at least five years older than the child.

It doesn’t have to be acted on to be considered pedophilia and generally it causes the person a lot of distress or interpersonal difficulties.

This man says he took a fondness to the young girl he ended up abusing because she came from a troubled background and he wanted to help her.

He says that he became emotionally attached to her and then sexually attracted. While that may be true, I believe he had a sexual attraction to her to begin with.

He went on to have sexual contact with her several times over the course of a school year before he was caught. He would keep the girl after class, after school and even give her rides home.

Her parents (an abusive, yet inattentive father and schizophrenic, disabled mother) weren’t the ones who caught on, but an observant teacher who had her suspicions and once she approached the young girl with her concerns, the girl was able to give numerous details of their sexual activities together including times and locations as well as details of his naked physical appearance.

He was arrested, yet plead guilty to lesser charges and served only a couple of years in prison before being let out on probation as a sexual predator.

Categories of Pedophiles

While most people think of pedophiles as adults attracted to prepubescent children, there are also adults who are attracted to children who are right on the cusp of puberty and adults who prefer children who have already gone through puberty.

Hebephilia describes adults attracted to pubescent 11 to 14 year old children and while not considered pathological, ephebophilia describes adults attracted primarily to individuals aged 15 to 19.

Some pedophiles are called exclusive pedophiles because they are only attracted to children while non-exclusive pedophiles are attracted to both adults and children.

It’s hard to get an accurate number of how many pedophiles are exclusive pedophiles because most of the research comes from pedophiles who have been arrested and they tend to over-exaggerate their attraction to adults in order to appear more “normal”.

Most male pedophiles are homosexual or bisexual when it comes to their attraction to children.

The guy I saw today is married and has adult children. He has an attraction and compulsion for young girls under the age of 13.

How Do They Gain Access To Children?

Pedophiles will go through great lengths to gain access to children. They will volunteer at churches to lead youth groups or offer to coach youth sports.

Ninety percent of sexually abused children are abused by someone they know. That includes a large percentage of family members, caregivers, family friends, neighbors, clergy, coaches and teachers.

This man was an Exceptional Education teacher who worked with emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. I can’t help but to think, at least on some unconscious level, that he choose both his profession and specialty in order to gain excess to vulnerable children.

The other 10% of abused children are usually preyed upon through sex trafficking and the internet. This is how he got his second offense.

After being arrested once for inappropriate sexual contact with a child, he violated his probation by being caught soliciting a child for sexual contact online.

While he claims he knew better and wanted to put his life back together after his first arrest, he admitted that his compulsion to have sex with little girls caused him to act upon them.

This compulsion or urge is what drives pedophiles. Many of them, like this man, will attempt to live normal lives and fight their sexual attraction to children. Some may be successful at this and never break a law or offend. They will keep these urges and fantasies a secret and suffer in silence for as long as they can.

Most of them will isolate themselves out of fear of the stigma and consequences of being sexually attracted to children and will not seek professional help out of shame and fear.

But can pedophiles be helped? We’ll talk about this in part II.

Popular Psychology

Beyond Punishment: Taking An Inside Look At Child Abuse

24 Feb 201524 Feb 2015by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

When I first saw this video yesterday it broke my heart. What I saw was not only in my eyes child abuse, but an angry man who probably not only beats his children like they were strangers on the street, but also probably abuses the women in his life. On top of that, what I saw was a culture where this type of physical abuse is not only excepted, but encouraged, hence the person video taping it and most likely the other people in the house who never intervened.

From my understandings, this father was “punishing” his thirteen-year-old daughter for being “rude”, “disrespectful” and talking to grown men. Obviously these are things that no parent would want from their child, but beating a child purposely with a belt on her face is not discipline. I can almost guarantee that this is not the first time that she has been beaten and yet her inappropriate, most likely defiant behavior hasn’t stopped.

Chances are that this parent has no real idea of how to be a parent or raise a child, if he did, there would have never been a need for him to discipline her physically because she would have been raised, taught, guided and disciplined more appropriately over the last thirteen years. If this father had any real ideal of how to raise a child in a loving way, he would have punished her in a way that wasn’t to hurt her necessarily, but to teach her right from wrong.

Most parents punish their children from a place of love. I didn’t see any love for this child during this beating. What I saw is a father who is psychologically disconnected in so many ways.

From a psychological point of view we have a young lady who is acting out for one reason or another and physical punishment isn’t going to stop that. She is acting out and only talking and trying to understand why she is acting out is going to stop that.

Secondly, we have a man in a wheelchair who probably already feels emasculated if not just outright angry at the world for whatever condition put him in a wheelchair and therefore is always a ticking time bomb. He may have been a mean and angry man before whatever put him in a wheelchair, but many people become more angry when they are injured, in pain or handicapped.

Read my article on physical punishment to understand some of the ways it can affect a child’s mental and emotional health. From my experience in working with children who have gotten punished like this, they rarely learn to stop the undesired behavior, but learn how to be more sneaky. The sad part is, a valuable lesson this girl may have learned from this is one many girls who grow up in abusive homes learn which is:

If a man really loves me he will hit me to show it
It’s okay if a man puts his hands on me, it’s all part of being in a relationship
I need a man who knows how to “handle me” and put me back in my place when I step out of line

To most of us those three responses may seem trivial, but I’ve worked with enough abused girls and young girls who ended up in abusive relationships to learn that many of them came from abusive homes where either they themselves were abused or where they witnessed abuse in their homes. They grew up thinking that it was not only okay, but the norm. Some even felt like it was a vital part of being in love because that is what they grew up seeing and thinking love is: Mom and dad fight, but they love each other and I see that. OR, mom fights with her boyfriend and then they go make love afterwards.

One young lady in particular saw her dad not only beat her mom, but he also beat her. Every relationship she got into as a teen and young adult was an abusive one. She didn’t understand it, but she unconsciously would seek out abusive men. She had two kids, each from an abusive man and the last time I met with her in counseling, she was with yet another abusive man. She couldn’t break the cycle. Her young boy and young girl are going to grow up witnessing and maybe even experiencing abuse.

This father in the video, in an attempt to raise a virtuous young lady may be in fact creating a woman who will go through a lifetime of troubled and abusive relationships because of the abuse she receives from her father.

No doubt some people may look at this video and see nothing wrong with the way he is disciplining his daughter and believe that people should mind their own business, but I personally hope that child protective services sees this video and rescues this child while the law punishes this “man”. I wrote this post not only because I am passionate about protecting children from abuse, but also in hopes of increasing the exposure of this video so that maybe someone will recognize the child and the father and contact child protective services in whatever city, state this took place in. It’s a new video so chances are something can be done relatively soon.

***Warning, the video may be hard for most people to watch.***

Popular Psychology

Adrian Peterson and Whipping: A Tradition That Goes Back To Slavery For Black Children

16 Sep 201419 Sep 2014by Torey C. Richards, LMHC4 Comments

This is not a post about corporal punishment although it could be. However, with all the buzz going on about Adrian Peterson being charged with reckless and negligent injury after whipping his 4-year-old son with a “switch” that left severe welts and broken skin on the child’s legs, it had me thinking about why do so many Black parents whip their children.

To be a little technical, there is a difference between a spanking (usually done with an open hand), a beating (usually done with a belt), a paddling (usually done with a wooden paddle) and a whipping (usually done with a small branch or twig). These are all forms of corporal punishment, but we are focusing on whipping since that is what Adrian Peterson is facing abuse charges for.

Parents of many different races, culture and ethnicities whip their children, but as a Black man I was really curious to why do Black parents whip their children since to me, even the term “whip” reminds me of the history of slavery when slaves would get whipped by their slave masters. Seeing welts on a child’s legs, back or arms are subtle reminders of much worse whippings inflicted on those slaves.

So why then would a Black parent choose to whip their child?

I know this is a hot debate and many people believe that whippings keep children in line. Many people will say they are successful and not in jail today because their parents whipped them. I also know that many people are in jail or are troubled individuals not necessarily because of being whipped, but whipping didn’t seem to have the desired behavior modification it was supposed to and may have had adverse effects.

Some of the most violent and aggressive teens I have worked with were whipped regularly. Not whipping a child in some people’s views may make the child spoiled, but I have never seen any real evidence that not whipping a child is more likely to make that child more physically aggressive later in life.

Each child is different and while one child may respond positively to whippings, another may become more violent, hostile, fearful and detached from their parents. I’m not shying away from punishment. There are a number of different nonviolent ways to punish a child.

I personally don’t believe in whippings. Growing up I may have been whipped two or three times, but I was never whipped as a default form of punishment, therefore I was never afraid of whippings. I was more motivated by not disappointing my parents and by rewards for good behavior, than punishment for bad behavior. I know that each child is different so I am not debating that.

However, I am here to educate. What many Black parents don’t know is that whipping our children is a direct syndrome of slavery.

An old classic picture of a slave showing healed scars from multiple whippings.

Injuries left on Adrian Peterson 4-year-old son after the whipping that has him facing charges.

Black people were unfortunately treated like beasts of the fields and whipped to discourage undesired behaviors. Black slaves were also used to whip and punish other Black slaves as a form of emotional and psychological warfare. Black slaves would be so afraid of the slave masters whipping their children for inappropriate behavior that they often would whip them first, hoping to save them from a much more severe whipping from the slave master.

This violent model became the only form of discipline that the Black slaves had to follow and therefore it was handed down throughout history.

During slavery, Black children had to learn very quickly the do’s and don’ts of being a slave on the plantation, or they would be beat severely or even killed by Whites, so Black parents whipped their own children to prevent this.

After slavery, the tradition continued. Blacks were usually punished more severely for committing social infractions than whites by teachers, people on the street, police and courts. Blacks were more likely to be beaten, thrown in jail or even lynched for minor transgressions so Black parents would punish their children severely through whippings in order to keep them from being punished by White society.

This was not down out of malice (although many parents have whipped their children out of anger), but out of love. The Black community felt a strong need to use corporeal punishment in order to keep their children from suffering potentially worst punishment from White society. Adrian Peterson was no doubt doing what was done to him by his mother and grandmother, and what was done to them by their parents, all the way back to slavery. He was doing what he thought would teach his son to stay out of trouble.

A lot of people will disagree with me about corporal punishment and I do believe that for Black people it served its purpose back in the day, but times are different. It’s time that we evolve and start looking for nonviolent ways to correct bad behavior.

There is enough violence in this world that we don’t have to subject our children to it in their own homes on a regularly basis. Stopping the violence in our communities is much more complicated if we don’t stop the violence in our own homes.

For more information, check out the article Punishment or Child Abuse?

Popular Psychology

Shhh, Let’s Not Talk About It: How Families Are Haunted By Incest And Sexual Abuse

29 Mar 201329 Mar 2013by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

Nearly every person I’ve counseled who has been sexually abused was abused by a family member, not a stranger.

In families there is an unspoken trust, one that says we will support and protect each other, especially the children. Child abuse goes against that unspoken trust.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons, on top of shame and fear, that victims of incest and child abuse often stay silent, making way for more abuse, even generational abuse, depression and addiction to flourish.

Child abuse is devastating and debilitating. It not only causes psychological and behavioral problems that can last a life time, but there is growing evidence that it also causes a number of physiological problems.

You would think that children would always be protected, but unfortunately in many families, the adults are too busy with their own issues such as financial problems and addictions to be effectively attentive to the children. Often, the adults are so happy that someone is “supervising” the kids that they are delighted when another relatively is spending time with them, not knowing that that relative may be molesting their child.

Often the victims of abuse I’ve worked with grew up in complex homes where they often weren’t paid attention to. Many of them were so hungry for attention that they mistook abuse for nurturing, which is another reason they didn’t tell anyone.

Whenever there was an opportunity for abuse and the caring adults in their lives turned away, it left opportunity for abuse to happen right under their roofs. When they were not paying attention to their child, someone else was paying too much attention to them.

Another reason victims don’t talk is because they think that they are the only one being abused and if they have younger siblings, they may not say anything as a way of protecting the younger children from the victimizer.

When there is a child molester in the family, chances are he or she is molesting more than one child and may go on to molest across generations. A lot of the child abuse victims I’ve worked with only came forward when they were either in fear that a younger relative was in danger of being molested or when they found out that their fears were true and a younger relative was being molested.

It’s rare that I talk to a victim of child sexual abuse and incest and they are the only person who has ever been abused by the victimizer. Many times this is not discovered until later in adulthood when as adults they start talking with other family members. This is when they usually realize that they weren’t the only ones being abused and the extent of the nightmare is finally revealed.

Case Example: “Catalina”

One of my adult clients, let’s call her Catalina, was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and incest. She lived under perfect conditions to be molested for years by a family member.

Her mother was an alcoholic and drug addict, her father was no where to be found. Her mother also had seven kids, all of which were eventually taken from her because she couldn’t take care of them. Catalina and her six siblings ended up with their mother’s mother, their grandmother who sounds like she was a real Mother Teresa. She had a kind heart, even took in other kids and always had a house full of relatives around including Catalina’s cousin Walter.

Walter was an adult, married with two children of his own, but he came around Catalina’s grandmother’s house often to hangout with the kids.

Walter would talk to Catalina as if she were his girlfriend, although she was his cousin and prepubescent. Catalina didn’t like it, but never told anyone. He then moved on to hugging her often, always making sure his erect penis pressed against her. Eventually he moved on to showing her his penis and rubbing it against her skin.

Again, she kept this a secret because she believed it was her fault and even thought it was somewhat normal. Thankfully, it ended there, but what Catalina didn’t know and would not know until adulthood is that while Walter was molesting and grooming her, he was already molesting and sleeping with her slightly older sister Michelle.

Michelle also didn’t tell anyone about cousin Walter, but it damaged her to the point that even when Walter stopped molesting Catalina, Michelle started molesting her.

Michelle started making Catalina touch her vagina and eventually made her perform oral sex on her. Catalina knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t tell anyone, she just did as she was told. The abuse lasted for several years, ending only when Michelle started having sex with boys.

This abuse left Catalina confused. She became hypersexual and even had thoughts of molesting her little sister on several occasions. Thankfully she never did and the molestation, at least in that house ended with her.

As a teenager she was very promiscuous and was confused about her sexuality well into adulthood. Now as an adult she is riddled with relationship and trust hangups and is terrified of having and raising children. Other than that, for the most part she has turned into a pretty well-adjusted woman.

The secrecy about the molestation allowed the initial victimizer, Walter to abuse at least two children in the same household. It is likely that he abused more and probably went on to abuse other family members for years since ’til this day no one is really talking about or confronting it.

Catalina and Michelle only recently had a heart to heart where Michelle apologized to Catalina for the abuse and explained that she was doing to her what had been done to her (Michelle) by Walter. Only then did the two realize that Walt had victimized both of them.

Some of the factors that allowed this abuse to happen besides the secrets and silence include:

they both believed that it was there fault
both Catalina and Michelle had been raised to believe that children were to be seen and not heard
they both believed there were too many problems going on in the home and there was no time for another one
they had never been talked to about sex in any capacity so the victimizer taught them what he wanted to
as girls they were taught that they were supposed to be passive, peaceful and not cause trouble
they were taught directly or indirectly that women are submissive
they were also taught that what happens inside of their home stays private
their mom always neglected them most when she had a boyfriend and they learned from her many relationships that women existed for pleasure
they also unfortunately believed it was normal to be victimized

Catalina’s story unfortunately echoes dozens of stories I could have told from personal experience. For more information on child sexual abuse there are many great books, but I can personally recommend No Secrets, No Lies: How Black Families Can Heal from Sexual Abuse by Robin D. Stone.

If you or someone you know needs help, please contact:

Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

1 (800) 656-4673 / www.rainn.org

If you are in immediate danger please call 911