Research participants required – University of Surrey

[This announcement is posted on behalf of researchers who are conducting an anonymous online survey of MAPs from the UK and Northern Ireland. As with all studies publicized by B4U-ACT, this one has been vetted to ensure that it has the potential to advance the well-being of MAPs rather than to serve social control goals. It is expected to inform researchers about MAPs’ mental health needs and the barriers they encounter when seeking services to meet those needs.]

We are researchers at the University of Surrey looking to explore the thoughts, feelings and experiences of people with an attraction to prepubescent or pubescent children / young adolescents in relation to voluntary help seeking in the U.K and Northern Ireland (e.g. seeking advice /therapy / counselling / support). We are interested in your thoughts and experiences of seeking help or support for a wide variety of reasons (ranging from seeking advice or support for managing your sexual attraction to dealing with depression/ feelings of anxiety / coping with stigma / relationships / suicidal thoughts etc.)

In this study, we will require participants to complete an anonymous online questionnaire about your thoughts, feelings and experiences around the topic of seeking help in relation to your attraction (or reasons related to your attraction) towards children or young adolescents. We are interested to learn more about your experiences in the UK in order to understand more about the availability of help and barriers to help.

You may take part if you are aged 18 and above, you self-identify an attraction towards children or young adolescents and you currently reside (or have resided in the UK & N.I).

If you would like to take part, please click on the link (or copy and paste the link) below to take you to further information and the questionnaire.

Link:

https://surreyfahs.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7WE6Q6uWdwA7HeJ

If you have further questions please contact Emma at e.fellowes@surrey.ac.uk

This study has received a favourable ethical opinion from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences Ethics Committee, at the University of Surrey.

Seeking People Interested in Being a Part of a Study about the Therapy-Seeking Behavior of Men Attracted to Minors

UPDATE: Participants may now be interviewed by email rather than voice chat if they prefer.

Male MAPs are invited to participate in a research study about understanding the help-seeking behaviors of men who are sexually attracted to minors. The study is also intended to help identify how mental health services can be made more available to those who are attracted to minors. My name is Heather Cacciatori, and I am a doctoral student of Psychology at Walden University. I am conducting this study for my PhD dissertation. The intent behind this study is to gain an understanding of the professional help-seeking behaviors of people who are sexually attracted to minors. The study will also help provide an understanding of how the decision to seek help or not has impacted your well-being. Your shared experiences will help me understand how you think about therapy, as well as how you believe you will be perceived by mental health professionals. Your experiences will be able to provide an understanding into how mental health professionals can make therapeutic services more readily available to those who are attracted to minors. Upon completion of the study, a one to two page summary of the results will be sent to the parties involved via email.

For those interested in participating, the interviews will be conducted by email or by using free internet-based software, such as Skype. If conducted by Skype, the audio will be recorded, but no video, if used, will be recorded or saved in any way. The interviews will take no more than an hour. Your identity will be protected so any data collected and reported will be anonymous.

Please email me at heather.cacciatori@waldenu.edu for more information.

You may be eligible to participate in this study if you can answer YES to all of these questions:
– I am a male who is 18 years or older.
– I am attracted to minors aged 17 or younger.
– I have never sexually offended against a minor or child
– I have never used pornography that involved children.
– I have no intentions to ever offend against a minor or child
– I intend to never use pornography that involves children.

All selected participants must be 18 or over and meet the above criteria. If you would like to participate in this study, please email me at heather.cacciatori@waldenu.edu to express your interest. When I receive your email, I will send you more detailed information on the study along with a consent form that will require your signature. Once the consent form is received, we will set up the interview.

UPDATE: The researcher has found sufficient MAPs for his interviews, and is therefore no longer seeking participants.

Mikkel Rask Pedersen is an anthropologist from Aarhus University in Denmark writing his final Master’s thesis on the relationship between how minor attracted people shape and manage their identity in resistance to societal representation and definitions of pedophilia, illness and desire. This means that he is researching how minor attracted people position themselves according to statements such as ‘It is only a matter of time before they offend’, ‘you cannot live a life repressing you sexuality’, ‘if they are attracted to minor that must mean they want to have sexual relations with them’ and, ‘minor attracted people need extensive therapy and help to not offend’.

The purpose of his study is twofold. One, to gain a better insight into the lived experience of being a minor attracted person through listening to their life stories. Two, to explore how the discourses in western societies shape, influence and restrict the ways minor attracted people are expected to act. Mikkel wishes to challenge the ways we talk about and understand sexuality and desires to create a more nuanced understanding of how people are not entirely defined by their desires, nor that desire must also mean wanting to act.

The research, therefore, does not focus on how to stop minor attracted people from offending, but how minor attracted people experience exactly such a rhetoric and discourse, always being stigmatized as a reliability. He is conducting interviews through mail and skype, maintaining the anonymity of participants.