Word: berlin
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...behavior--and to comprehending its effects on their victims. Such work can require cold-eyed questions that poke around the edges of our darkest taboos. At the outset, it's important to note that news accounts often conflate two phenomena: pedophilia and child sexual abuse. According to Dr. Fred Berlin, a Johns Hopkins University professor who founded the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma in Baltimore, Md., pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation marked by persistent, sometimes exclusive, attraction to prepubescent children. Dr. John Bradford, a University of Ottawa psychiatrist who has spent 23 years...
...Berlin runs one of the largest such programs in the nation. Since 1991 hundreds of pedophiles have gone to the creaky Victorian building that houses his clinic. Berlin sees their condition as similar to alcoholism--incurable but treatable--and some of his methods sound similar to those of Alcoholics Anonymous. The pedophiles must admit their urges and confront them in group therapy. Counselors help them restructure their lives so that they don't come into contact with children. Berlin prescribes medication to reduce sex drives for the 30% of his patients who don't respond to nondrug therapy...
...misnomer because sex drive returns if the injections stop.) But together, drugs and counseling can be effective. Contrary to popular perception, a raft of studies has shown that once in treatment, few pedophiles relapse. In 1991 the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry published a study of 400 of Berlin's patients; only 1.2% of those who had complied with his 2 1/2-year treatment were known to have molested kids again three years after finishing the course. Surprisingly, only 5.6% of those who were discharged for noncompliance offended in that period. Similarly, a 2002 study by St. Luke Institute, a psychiatric...
...those who refuse treatment. Such disparities highlight how uncertain the study of pedophilia is, but even the higher figure belies the popular notion that if a pedophile is allowed to go free, he will almost always molest again. "It's very easy to say, 'Throw away the key,'" says Berlin. "But many of these people are tortured by these temptations, and they are relieved that we can do something for them...
...pedophiles get this help, as Berlin is one of only a dozen or so doctors who run such clinics in North America. "We don't have Betty Ford centers for people with sexual disorders," he says. Instead, a 1996 federal law requires sex offenders to register with state authorities. When an offender is released from prison, the state can (and often does) notify neighbors. It's unclear whether the legislation is preventing abuse...