Published: Less than 20 min ago
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Online therapy can be an effective tool to get people to stop viewing and sharing child abuse material, a new study suggests. Now the method is to be spread to several countries.
– A milestone, says Christoffer Rahm, chief medical officer and responsible for the study.
During the therapy session, the anonymous man suddenly began to whisper.
– I have to go out of the house.
The man’s wife had come home. He went out into the garden and continued to tell. How he kept a secret all his life, and about his sexual interest in children. Now he had become a parent.
– The inner worlds could no longer be combined. He had to choose a side, says Christoffer Rahm, chief physician in psychiatry and research group leader at the Karolinska Institutet.
The man is one of 160 anonymous people who were included in a Swedish study with the aim of getting people to stop watching and sharing images or videos where children are sexually exploited.
Recruited on the darknet
The recruitment of the study participants took place via the darknet. An unusual environment for researchers to work in. People with a sexual interest in children gather here in various forums. The idea to seek out participants on the darknet came from the perpetrators themselves.
In a previous study at the Karolinska Institutet, the researchers saw that people are often 35 years old when they come to care. Then they have already had sexual thoughts about children for many years.
– There were several who said: Don’t wait until we come to you. Come to us, says Christoffer Rahm.
At first, the research team was met with suspicion, before they managed to gain the trust of darknet users.
– It’s about understanding the landscape, the cultural codes and how people talk, and getting them to understand that we are there for our research purpose.
Millions of files
The problem with the spread of child abuse material online is a big one. In 2021, almost 85 million files of suspected documented child sexual abuse were reported, according to the organization NCMEC. At the same time, there is a lack of knowledge about which methods are most effective in preventing sexual violence.
In the study, a treatment program based on a manual developed at Karolinska University Hospital was evaluated.
The anonymous participants were drawn into two groups. One group underwent internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for eight weeks, the other received a psychological placebo treatment. One month after the treatment, a follow-up was done.
– About half of those who completed the study, both in the placebo group and the CBT group, then said that they had not watched abuse material in the past week, says Johanna Lätth, PhD student and forensic specialist psychologist at Karolinska Institutet, who worked on the study.
Not like the stereotype
The amount of time participants viewed abuse material was also reduced, and the reduction was greater in the treatment group.
– We now have support to say that it is effective, safe and appreciated, says Christoffer Rahm.
The work with the study has also provided new knowledge about which people spread abuse material against children online. The stereotype of a lonely person living in a filter bubble on the darknet is not always true.
– Some told me that they can live family life and in large social contexts, but carry this secret. They finally got to process this together with someone, says Christoffer Rahm.
Helping the children
Now the treatment method is to be spread. Eight countries will offer therapy in their languages, including a version in Swedish.
The study has been done in collaboration with the World Childhood Foundation. At first, it was not obvious for the children’s rights organization to put resources into the study, with its clear focus on perpetrators.
– There is a strong social discourse that the only thing that is acceptable is to punish those who commit abuse. Anything else is being naive, explains Britta Holmberg, program director and deputy general secretary.
– But we see that it is really not an opposite, but the opposite. If you are going to help the children, you actually need to change their behavior which could be a risk to the children.
Facts
The study in brief
A total of 160 anonymous people from all over the world participated. A majority of the participants were recruited via the darknet, the encrypted part of the internet.
The participants were drawn into two groups. One group received Internet-based CBT therapy based on a new manual developed by Karolinska University Hospital. The other group received psychological placebo treatment.
The treatment lasted for eight weeks, with a follow-up one month later. Among other things, the participants had to state how much time they spend watching abuse material.
After the treatment, both groups reported that they significantly reduced the amount of time they watched abuse material. The reduction was significantly greater in the CBT group.
About half of the participants stated after eight or twelve weeks that they had not viewed any abuse material at all in the past week.
Participants also spent less time searching for abuse material, being on darknet forums, organizing material and fantasizing sexually about children, according to the study. Here, too, the reduction was significantly greater among those who had received CBT treatment.
Source: The report “Effects of internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy on use of child sexual abuse material: A randomized placebo-controlled trial on the Darknet”, published in the journal Internet Interventions.
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