I sit looking out the window of the Granada Institute in Shankill, Co Dublin, waiting to speak with therapist Dr Jeanine De Volder, a South African national. I avoid eye contact with the other occupants in the room. Privacy and personal space seem important here.
I enter De Volder’s office. Her warm smile reflects a caring lady in her early thirties. Her cheerful disposition is not what I expected from someone with her day-job. I’m here to talk about the paedophiles that she helps to counsel and treat.
De Volder deals in particular with child sex abusers and victims of child sex abuse. It is part of the Institute’s mission to treat both victims and perpetrators of child abuse. Established 10 years ago, it is one of the few such institutes of its kind.
It’s not an easy job, but De Volder says that staff at the Institute are supportive of each other. At every session, with victim or abuser, there are always two colleagues present.
Reflecting on the treatment, she feels the public need to be re-educated about the subject of child abuse and the abusers. “The public invariably see the abuser and the abused as two separate issues. In fact, in most cases the victim and the abuser are one and the same person. Usually the abuser is confused, feels neglected and lack intimacy in their lives.
“The abuser is usually depressed, and children who are very friendly and loving fill that void for them. A lot of the time the sexual aspect of being with a child is not the foremost important aspect of the relationship with the child.”
She tried to make sense of the abuse and the distortions that go through an abuser’s mind. She spent two years studying this subject for her Master’s before going on to do a PhD.
She said that there are two broad types of offences, differentiated as ‘contact’ offences and ‘non-contact’ offences. Contact offenders typically begin the relationship on an emotional, non-contact level with the child, but gradually this emotion becomes sexualised and leads to abusive contact. In her experience, things go wrong when men seek to fulfil emotional and intimate needs absent from their everyday life.
These men account for the majority of abusers. “Women find it easier to talk about their problems and have less of a problem with intimacy,” says De Volder. This can also make men feel emotionally lonely.
None of what De Volder calls her ‘clients’ — very PC institute-speak — are women but she says that this is sometimes because most boys, if abused by a woman, will not come forward for fear that their claims will not be taken seriously.
Many of the Granada Institute’s clients have appeared before the courts on charges relating to their sexual tendencies. Most of them want to be reformed. Some have already been sentenced and are serving suspended time jail. Some have been castrated.
Medical castration as punishment or treatment is something De Volder doesn’t agree with, though there is talk of bringing this into some prison sex offender units in the UK and USA. “This will merely stop the men from having an erection,” De Volder says, and they could still abuse children without an erection themselves. “The intimacy and emotional problems will still be there, and so they will most likely reoffend.”
As for the clients who have been in prison or may still be facing sentencing, judges will in most cases deliver a more lenient sentence to those in therapy, as it demonstrates acceptance and responsibility for the crime. Few, however, admit their guilt.
Throughout the interview I use the term ‘paedophiles’ but she corrects me. She uses the phrase “men who have abused children”; it seems like a form of positive brainwashing.
De Volder claims that 99.9 per cent of her clients are not paedophiles but men who have abused children. This I find strange. She explains that the abuser must use the child as a sexual substitute habitually, otherwise the person does not meet the criteria that define a paedophile.
I query the role pornography plays in a paedophile’s life. Interestingly, she says that men who look at child pornography say that it is important the child is smiling and their overall demeanour is happy. This decreases the level of guilt incurred.
Many abusers also rationalize their actions with what the therapists call ‘minimisation’. The abusers convince themselves they are not inflicting much damage because the child keeps coming back to them. It is this kind of mental illness that only the proper therapy-treatment can help resolve.
The therapy at the Granada Institute consists of one-to-one sessions between the doctor and clients and gradually leads towards group therapy. The groups usually consist of eight men at different stages of their treatment, so the new participants may learn from the others in the latter stages of their treatment.
There is certainly value to this treatment, but it is still far from perfect. If the individual has been properly treated there is an eight per cent chance they will re-offend, in comparison to a 22 per cent chance if they haven’t.
But what about the young victims? Three-quarters of the children do not reveal the abuse to others. And these victims often become abusers themselves, a fact often missed in the sensationalised media coverage of child abuse stories. This vicious cycle continues today, despite all of society’s attempts — both therapeutic and punitive — to break it.
In a recent case Joan Hunt, whose father abused her for ten years starting when she was aged only four years, received more than €1 million in settlement. Her case is only one of many in Ireland.
In May 1999, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made a formal apology to victims of State institutional child abuse. “On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.” Had there been more such institutions in existence, then maybe child abuse wouldn’t have been so rife, De Volder believes.
She clearly believes in the value of the therapy. “If a paedophile has undergone the necessary treatment then he or she should be allowed to go into the community anonymously,” she feels. Most of her clients are not known to be sex offenders in their communities, and only a handful are forced to move away.
A group class is on when I leave, and I recognise the men from the waiting room. My heart is in my stomach as I realise that people I was sitting beside, normal looking men, the type we talk to every day and see on the street, were some of the paedophiles we are so terrified of. Normal looking men who are seeking help for the terrible crimes they have committed.