Development and Sexual Orientation
Pedophilia can be described as a disorder of sexual preference, phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation because it emerges before or during puberty, and because it is stable over time. These observations, however, do not exclude pedophilia from the group of mental disorders because pedophilic acts cause harm, and pedophiles can sometimes be helped by mental health professionals to refrain from acting on their impulses.
Read more about this topic: Pedophilia
Famous quotes containing the words development and/or orientation:
“For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively. . . .”
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“Every orientation presupposes a disorientation.”
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