Beautifully articulated. I’ve worked at length with many men on the sex offender registry, and particularly the ones who’ve sexually abused children experience an astounding amount of dissociation. I also get the sense that many of these men are significantly severed from the memories of what they’ve done to children and that their denial or rewriting of history sometimes comes from a genuine belief that what happened actually did not happen. Many of them already have a very deep propensity for sectioning off parts of their experiences through dissociation brought on by their own severe developmental trauma (often CSA) before they abuse children themselves.
What you say describes the people who have abused me. Whether they felt distress while engaging in the behaviors or not, the behaviors themselves and their consequences are in total conflict with how those people need to see themselves in order to survive, so they deny it not only to me but also to themselves.
I recognize that they did not set out with consciously sadistic intentions, and I recognize that they were traumatized. They, too, at least recognize that they were traumatized; but working with that fact seems to stop at trotting it out as a complete and conversation-ending explanation for whatever can’t be dissociated/denied. Notably this retrospective (or stubbornly non-retrospective) behavior has unfolded basically identically in both the man and the woman involved in my childhood abuse.
I hope to never find myself explaining to any child that they can’t be safe because I myself was not safe as a child. The horror of this possible future motivates me to work through this here and now.
Yes — recognizing the role of trauma is the first step not the last step. It must be followed by rigorous responsibility taking. And as survivors we need to take this seriously because we are at high risk of perpetration and/or enabling otherwise.
Thank you, I’ve been thinking a lot about this as someone with OCD. Things are just not as simple as ego-dystonic=OCD and ego-syntonic=bad guy. I don’t think therapyjeff used an “OCD framework”, because not all ego-dystonic thoughts are OCD driven. People are so much more complex than that.
While I get that distinguishing between ego-dystonic and ego-syntonic thoughts can be helpful for diagnosing OCD, drawing lines between yourself and the “real bad guys” actually isn’t good for people with OCD. In treatment you learn to accept uncertainty instead of compulsively trying to distinguish yourself from the bad guys, obsessing about where the line is, checking if you enjoy the thoughts or not, seeking reassurance, etc. When I see people come to the defense of people with OCD over the therapyjeff situation, it looks to me like reassurance which is, ironically, harmful to people with OCD.
Anyone can perpetuate harm. Being preoccupied with not being a bad person doesn’t actually make you a good person. In fact, my OCD has made me sabotage exactly the things I care about. For example, I’ve been so worried about being a bad friend that I’ve abandoned my friends. OCD can even make parents neglect their children because they’re so afraid of parenting wrong.
We’re all swimming in patriarchy and violence, and the need to be “good” won’t fix it. The impulse to separate ourselves from the problem keeps us from really understanding it, and it also allows us to relinquish the responsibility we all have to address it.
I'm open to your thesis, but I think there is a serious gap in it which I'd need to fill or see filled before I could accept it. That being, the possibility that Dominique Pelicot and other abusers are lying about experiences of trauma in order to engender sympathy.
This is one of the sources that Bancroft cited in his book (or at least alluded to, he doesn't directly cite ANY source, which is both bad practice and incredibly annoying):
"Polygraph Testing Leads to Better Understanding Adult and Juvenile Sex Offenders"
In the first study this paper mentions (it summaries studies from a few different places), the self-reported history of sexual victimisation (both victimising and being victimised) is collected from two different groups of sex offenders. The first is the control group, with no special conditions. The second group is told they will be polygraphed (i.e. given a lie detector test) and that they will be given amnesty for any previously-unknown crimes that they admit to ("The polygraph testing was begun in 1983, with the authorization of the local district attorney, who gave polygraphed offenders conditional immunity from prosecution for unreported prior sexual crimes.").
The results were that 67% of the first group reported being sexually abused as children, versus 29% in the second group. Additionally, 21% of the first group reported sexually abusing others as children, vs. 71% in the second group.
Assuming the methodologies hold up, and haven't been displaced by more up-to-date, superior research, then I think this throws a serious wrench in the idea that abuse is caused by trauma (at least, trauma in the form of sexual abuse or so on). Certainly I'm very skeptical of D. Pelicot's claims.
Potential issues with this study:
1. The authors seem to believe that lie detectors actually work (they do not). This might NOT be an issue, because the paper seems to say that the answers were collected BEFORE polygraphing, and if the offenders also believe that lie detectors work, then they're still incentivised to be more honest. Still, there could be issues caused that I'm not seeing.
2. "the program admitted only individuals who accepted responsibility for their crime. The difference was that the latter group was required to prepare a sexual history, and to pass a full-disclosure polygraph examination on that sexual history as a requirement for successful completion of treatment." This could cause survivorship bias, where those who didn't "pass" the polygraph might have been telling the truth but still discarded from the sample. Thus skewing the results.
Anyway, would be nice to hear what you think about this.
Beautifully articulated. I’ve worked at length with many men on the sex offender registry, and particularly the ones who’ve sexually abused children experience an astounding amount of dissociation. I also get the sense that many of these men are significantly severed from the memories of what they’ve done to children and that their denial or rewriting of history sometimes comes from a genuine belief that what happened actually did not happen. Many of them already have a very deep propensity for sectioning off parts of their experiences through dissociation brought on by their own severe developmental trauma (often CSA) before they abuse children themselves.
What you say describes the people who have abused me. Whether they felt distress while engaging in the behaviors or not, the behaviors themselves and their consequences are in total conflict with how those people need to see themselves in order to survive, so they deny it not only to me but also to themselves.
I recognize that they did not set out with consciously sadistic intentions, and I recognize that they were traumatized. They, too, at least recognize that they were traumatized; but working with that fact seems to stop at trotting it out as a complete and conversation-ending explanation for whatever can’t be dissociated/denied. Notably this retrospective (or stubbornly non-retrospective) behavior has unfolded basically identically in both the man and the woman involved in my childhood abuse.
I hope to never find myself explaining to any child that they can’t be safe because I myself was not safe as a child. The horror of this possible future motivates me to work through this here and now.
Yes — recognizing the role of trauma is the first step not the last step. It must be followed by rigorous responsibility taking. And as survivors we need to take this seriously because we are at high risk of perpetration and/or enabling otherwise.
Thank you, I’ve been thinking a lot about this as someone with OCD. Things are just not as simple as ego-dystonic=OCD and ego-syntonic=bad guy. I don’t think therapyjeff used an “OCD framework”, because not all ego-dystonic thoughts are OCD driven. People are so much more complex than that.
While I get that distinguishing between ego-dystonic and ego-syntonic thoughts can be helpful for diagnosing OCD, drawing lines between yourself and the “real bad guys” actually isn’t good for people with OCD. In treatment you learn to accept uncertainty instead of compulsively trying to distinguish yourself from the bad guys, obsessing about where the line is, checking if you enjoy the thoughts or not, seeking reassurance, etc. When I see people come to the defense of people with OCD over the therapyjeff situation, it looks to me like reassurance which is, ironically, harmful to people with OCD.
Anyone can perpetuate harm. Being preoccupied with not being a bad person doesn’t actually make you a good person. In fact, my OCD has made me sabotage exactly the things I care about. For example, I’ve been so worried about being a bad friend that I’ve abandoned my friends. OCD can even make parents neglect their children because they’re so afraid of parenting wrong.
We’re all swimming in patriarchy and violence, and the need to be “good” won’t fix it. The impulse to separate ourselves from the problem keeps us from really understanding it, and it also allows us to relinquish the responsibility we all have to address it.
Great insight, thanks.
Tne argument about whetever male violence is "natural" is discussed in the article "It's only a penis : rape, feminism and difference" (https://sashassnippets.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/helliwell2cit27sonlyapenis.pdf)
I'm open to your thesis, but I think there is a serious gap in it which I'd need to fill or see filled before I could accept it. That being, the possibility that Dominique Pelicot and other abusers are lying about experiences of trauma in order to engender sympathy.
This is one of the sources that Bancroft cited in his book (or at least alluded to, he doesn't directly cite ANY source, which is both bad practice and incredibly annoying):
"Polygraph Testing Leads to Better Understanding Adult and Juvenile Sex Offenders"
https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/65_3_2_0.pdf
In the first study this paper mentions (it summaries studies from a few different places), the self-reported history of sexual victimisation (both victimising and being victimised) is collected from two different groups of sex offenders. The first is the control group, with no special conditions. The second group is told they will be polygraphed (i.e. given a lie detector test) and that they will be given amnesty for any previously-unknown crimes that they admit to ("The polygraph testing was begun in 1983, with the authorization of the local district attorney, who gave polygraphed offenders conditional immunity from prosecution for unreported prior sexual crimes.").
The results were that 67% of the first group reported being sexually abused as children, versus 29% in the second group. Additionally, 21% of the first group reported sexually abusing others as children, vs. 71% in the second group.
Assuming the methodologies hold up, and haven't been displaced by more up-to-date, superior research, then I think this throws a serious wrench in the idea that abuse is caused by trauma (at least, trauma in the form of sexual abuse or so on). Certainly I'm very skeptical of D. Pelicot's claims.
Potential issues with this study:
1. The authors seem to believe that lie detectors actually work (they do not). This might NOT be an issue, because the paper seems to say that the answers were collected BEFORE polygraphing, and if the offenders also believe that lie detectors work, then they're still incentivised to be more honest. Still, there could be issues caused that I'm not seeing.
2. "the program admitted only individuals who accepted responsibility for their crime. The difference was that the latter group was required to prepare a sexual history, and to pass a full-disclosure polygraph examination on that sexual history as a requirement for successful completion of treatment." This could cause survivorship bias, where those who didn't "pass" the polygraph might have been telling the truth but still discarded from the sample. Thus skewing the results.
Anyway, would be nice to hear what you think about this.