Sexual Aggression Against Children: Pedophiles' and Abusers' Development, Dynamics, Treatability, and the Law

In Sexual Aggression Against Children: Pedophiles’ and Abusers' Development, Dynamics, Treatability, and the Law, Drs. Blackman and Dring use multiple psychoanalytic principles to answer, “Why do people sexually abuse children?” and “Why are most abusers male”? They address the legal and mental health professions’ minimization of the horrific nature of child sexual abuse, explain how to assess pedophiles’ treatability, and discuss cases of adolescent and adult predators. Also, developmental analysis of sexual predation is integrated with a review of judicial decisions regarding civil commitment and punishment of abusers. The authors suggest how courts, evaluators, and legislatures can preserve constitutional rights of sexual offenders while prioritizing protection of children.

Jerome S. Blackman, MD, DFAPA, FACPsa, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Training Analyst for the Contemporary Freudian Society-Washington, DC, and author of three prior books from Routledge. He spent ten years consulting to Child Protection in five parishes in the New Orleans area, where he personally evaluated over 5000 cases of child abuse; about 2000 were alleged sexual abuse perpetrators. He was a state witness in juvenile, state, and federal courts, served on boards of child abuse shelters, and was designated by Louisiana as a Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Resource.

Kathleen Dring, JD, PsyD , attorney and psychologist, has, for the past 19 years, been a psychological consultant to the Child Protective and Foster Care Services of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia. Currently Secretary of the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, she has served as an expert witness in child custody and parenting cases in Virginia. She has also been called on by Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Chesapeake to furnish evaluations and treatment to families in need, and has been an invited speaker for educational seminars to judges, attorneys, mental health providers, doctoral students, and guardians ad litem.