The Jewish Week by David Mandel & Dr. David Pelcovitz
Our community has to recognize that child molestation is a disease. The child molester is a sick person with an illness that he is unable to control or stop on his own. He has a preoccupation and a sexual desire for young children. In order to stop, he needs help through treatment,supervision or incarceration.
In our collective experience working with this population in the Jewish community, approximately one-third of pedophiles have a preference for boys, one-third prefer girls, and one-third have no preference. Some pedophiles also have distinct preferences within select age groups.
The article, “A Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg” (Sept. 5), about a young man, Joel Engelman, alleging he was sexually abused as a child by his principal, once again raises the important question of what can we do as parents, as educators, and as a community to protect and respond to sexual abuse.
While we do not know the people involved in the story, it is noteworthy that Engleman and his attorney, Eliot Pasik, stated they were not initially seeking a financial settlement but rather an assurance that other children would not be exposed and hurt.
Children are sexually victimized because they can be. They are trusting, vulnerable, curious by nature, and usually not suspicious of adults, certainly not of a parent, teacher, counselor or other role model. This can be true of adolescents as well, who can fall prey to sexual abuse even into their mid teens.
Children can be victimized repeatedly because they are often too ashamed or frightened to divulge information to others. Ashamed of what was done to them or what they were forced to do. Frightened because the molester threatened to hurt them or their family members, or frightened that their parents will not believe them or will blame them.
Unlike other insidious social problems such as gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse is not seen as an illness and still carries with it a taboo that results in a nonproductive demonization of the perpetrator and isolation of the victim.
In the last decade, a number of adolescents and young married men and women have self-identified and sought treatment for their serious problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol. While in some circumstances they may have been forced to seek help by their spouses, employers or creditors, these “addicts” have, willingly or not, sought and accepted professional help. The publicized accidental deaths by drug overdose of a number of young men, coupled with the writings of Dr. Abraham Twerski, have painfully raised our awareness and have resulted in many more individuals seeking professional treatment.
On the other hand, several deaths, accidental or suicide, resulting from depression and despondency due to sexual victimization, were not publicized.
It is fair to say that alcohol, drug, and gambling problems, serious as they are, no longer carry the social stigma and social isolation they did just a short few years ago. Not so with sexual abuse — not to the victim or to the perpetrator.
In our respective years of work at OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services and previously at North Shore University Hospital and in private practice, it’s fair to say we have met with, counseled and treated many hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trauma.
Victims of sexual abuse, unlike other victims, almost never self-disclose.A crime victim may report to the police. A victim of domestic violence may seek out a relative, a rabbi, or a mental health professional. A drug user or alcohol binger can often be recognized by a spouse or employer. Not so with a victim of sexual abuse who is embarrassed, who represses, and who, years later, continues to carry the scars of the unresolved trauma of the abuse. So, too, with a child molester.
He (95 percent are male) will almost never voluntarily seek treatment. The fears of retribution, social isolation, physical harm, loss of family, loss of work, along with his sexual proclivities, prevent him from disclosing.[...]
Our community has to recognize that child molestation is a disease. The child molester is a sick person with an illness that he is unable to control or stop on his own. He has a preoccupation and a sexual desire for young children. In order to stop, he needs help through treatment,supervision or incarceration.
In our collective experience working with this population in the Jewish community, approximately one-third of pedophiles have a preference for boys, one-third prefer girls, and one-third have no preference. Some pedophiles also have distinct preferences within select age groups.
The article, “A Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg” (Sept. 5), about a young man, Joel Engelman, alleging he was sexually abused as a child by his principal, once again raises the important question of what can we do as parents, as educators, and as a community to protect and respond to sexual abuse.
While we do not know the people involved in the story, it is noteworthy that Engleman and his attorney, Eliot Pasik, stated they were not initially seeking a financial settlement but rather an assurance that other children would not be exposed and hurt.
Children are sexually victimized because they can be. They are trusting, vulnerable, curious by nature, and usually not suspicious of adults, certainly not of a parent, teacher, counselor or other role model. This can be true of adolescents as well, who can fall prey to sexual abuse even into their mid teens.
Children can be victimized repeatedly because they are often too ashamed or frightened to divulge information to others. Ashamed of what was done to them or what they were forced to do. Frightened because the molester threatened to hurt them or their family members, or frightened that their parents will not believe them or will blame them.
Unlike other insidious social problems such as gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse is not seen as an illness and still carries with it a taboo that results in a nonproductive demonization of the perpetrator and isolation of the victim.
In the last decade, a number of adolescents and young married men and women have self-identified and sought treatment for their serious problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol. While in some circumstances they may have been forced to seek help by their spouses, employers or creditors, these “addicts” have, willingly or not, sought and accepted professional help. The publicized accidental deaths by drug overdose of a number of young men, coupled with the writings of Dr. Abraham Twerski, have painfully raised our awareness and have resulted in many more individuals seeking professional treatment.
On the other hand, several deaths, accidental or suicide, resulting from depression and despondency due to sexual victimization, were not publicized.
It is fair to say that alcohol, drug, and gambling problems, serious as they are, no longer carry the social stigma and social isolation they did just a short few years ago. Not so with sexual abuse — not to the victim or to the perpetrator.
In our respective years of work at OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services and previously at North Shore University Hospital and in private practice, it’s fair to say we have met with, counseled and treated many hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trauma.
Victims of sexual abuse, unlike other victims, almost never self-disclose.A crime victim may report to the police. A victim of domestic violence may seek out a relative, a rabbi, or a mental health professional. A drug user or alcohol binger can often be recognized by a spouse or employer. Not so with a victim of sexual abuse who is embarrassed, who represses, and who, years later, continues to carry the scars of the unresolved trauma of the abuse. So, too, with a child molester.
He (95 percent are male) will almost never voluntarily seek treatment. The fears of retribution, social isolation, physical harm, loss of family, loss of work, along with his sexual proclivities, prevent him from disclosing.[...]
Dr. Eidensohn/da'as torah, quite obviously the appearnce of paid commercials in the body of your blogs is something new and we wish you well with your experiment. Yet, the intrusion of these relatively large sized ads into the body of the text of subjects relating to "da'as torah" is somewhat distracting and off-putting. So could you explain to those of us who are not that comfortbalke with this rather disruptive commercial intrusion here, your reasoning as to why it was necessary to do it this way (you could have chosen less obtrusive side bars and ads), asside from the obvious need for parnossah. Thanks a lot and success with your choices. Do I get a special mention for raisng your Internet traffic and stats with all the hard work I do in adding and sending my posts here, or maybe a small commission?
ReplyDeleteDear author,
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this article. I find it very interesting and I think that this is a topic that should be spoken about in public.
In the case you are publishing this because you are working on your book, I would like to make a few comments, perhaps you will find them helpful.
I would not say that a "child abuser can be helped by (...) incarceration".
I would say he can be helped by treatment or be kept from doing harm by incarceration.
I think it is not only shame that makes that victims can be abused repeatedly, since it also happens that they come back to the abuser without being forced to. So I think that this mechanism is more complex and cannot be explained by mere shame.
Are you sure that abused children do not talk about abuse? In an article, I read that in average abused children tell several (I think it was 6) adults about abuse, before they are believed. So not believing the children seems to be a major problem in fighting abuse.
Anonymous Recipients and Publicity said...
ReplyDeleteDr. Eidensohn/da'as torah, quite obviously the appearnce of paid commercials in the body of your blogs is something new and we wish you well with your
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thanks for the information - I don't see any paid commericials on my blog nor have I inserted any. It could be when I cut and pasted the article the ads came along. I'll check the html. Please let me know if they disappear.
Shoshi wrote:
ReplyDeleteAre you sure that abused children do not talk about abuse? In an article, I read that in average abused children tell several (I think it was 6) adults about abuse, before they are believed. So not believing the children seems to be a major problem in fighting abuse.
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Would greatly appreciate seeing this article - where is it and who wrote it?
Recipients and Publicity said...
ReplyDeleteDo I get a special mention for raisng your Internet traffic and stats with all the hard work I do in adding and sending my posts here, or maybe a small commission?
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Since you obviously feel unappreciated for your efforts here and seek greater fame and fortune - why not start your own blog? Instead of exerting yourself so strongly here and other places e.g., C.T. you could have it all for yourself?
Why be a tail when you can be a head [not just of foxes but of lions]? If you need help setting up a blog I would be glad to give you advice -free of charge of course.
I think it was about english abuse statistics. While I do not remember what the article was (I read it several years ago, probably in an english-speaking newspaper (could be the Times or "the economist"), it should be possible to find the statistics the article was referring to among psychologic literature. I think it referred to britain.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.apa.org/journals/features/law111194.pdf
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting article about the problems linked to disclosure of child abuse.
However, it does give the statistics I was looking for.