Abstract
Here reported are some of the highlights of a research project completed at the Forensic Clinic, Toronto Psychiatric Hospital. It was aimed at exploring the dynamics of pedophilia and the testing treatment techniques in a context of long-term psychotherapy with chronic pedophiles. Analytically oriented group psychotherapy is seen as the treatment method of choice for unmotivated pedophiles. The group psychotherapeutic sessions are seen as providing the therapeutic attention and interaction necessary for better reality testing, acceptance of responsibility, insight, integrated knowledge about self and the lessening and disappearance of pedophilic urges. In conducting the group, emphasis is placed on the need for flexibility in the therapist. In the integrative phase the therapist must be active, involved, reality-oriented and supportive, to foster ego and the development necessary for the abandonment of compromise devices. Later the therapist's activities are mainly focused on exploring resistances, and there is a gradual change to free group association, to the underlying unconsciously motivated common group themes and to the emphasis on the group as a whole.
The pedophilic act per se is seen as a defensive measure by which the ego establishes homeostasis in time of stress. For pedophiles almost any stress caused by disturbance in object relationships can produce a state of panic. The ego of the pedophile faces tremendous regressive urges toward the recreation of the infantile symbiosis with the mother. Simultaneously there are intense fears of disintegration caused by sadistic rage towards the mother-figure. The unbearable tensions created by these are alleviated by the pedophilic act in those cases where a complex mother-child identification takes place.
The powerful therapeutic effect of the group sessions is seen also as being further strengthened by the symbolic meaning that the group as a whole becomes, viz, assurance of the group members against object loss.
The writer's gratitude to the group members of the Forensic Clinic's group psychotherapy seminar, for their valuable discussions, is herewith acknowledged.