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The American Psychiatric Association is in controversy about whether pedophilia is a sexual interest in orientation or a disorder. The DCM5 diagnostic manual first listed pedophilia as a sexual orientation. When Christian and conservative Americans wrote a petition to Congress and Attorney General Eric Holder to appeal to the APA to change the definition, the APA said in a news release that the DCM contained an error and should have said 'sexual interest'. In the news release the APA confirmed that they strongly support effort to criminally prosecute those who sexually abuse and exploit children and adolescents. They also support the ongoing efforts to develop treatment for individuals who have been diagnosed with pedophiliac disorder with the goal of preventing future abusive acts. The APA's notes explain that they didn't change the definition of pedophilia in its new edition of DDCM. Instead they only changed the name of the disorder from 'pedophilia' to 'pedophiliac disorder'. As it stood before in order to be diagnosed with the pedophiliac disorder people must not only have thoughts of attraction to children, they must act on the attraction as well. Gilan Gertz, a writer and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than twelve years of experience on pedophilia, shared his views in an interview to Voice of Russia.

Mr Gertz said it is a widely believed fact that APA has become very politicized. He pointed out that shortly before the latest version of the DCM, the manual published by the American Psychiatric Association, was issued the National Institute of Mental Health pulled back from supporting it on the grounds that the manual is not oriented enough toward research, while the research is not valid enough.

“However, I don't think that the APA is overly politicized or is doing what it is not supposed to be doing because if you read its mission statement, the mission of the APA is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge, to benefit society and improve people's lives. In other words, the APA is automatically political. They do want to change people and improve their lives. And one of the former presidents spoke (she was in 2004) Dr Diane Halpern and she said: ‘Straight out – that is the rule of the APA to inform public policy with a social science data.’ They want to be political,” – Mr Gertz said.

Responding to suggestion that the APA has been acting too liberal in defining the sexual behavior, Mr Gertz said, “The human sexual behavior has a scientific basis that is still not completely understood. There is a lot of research being done to understand whether homosexuality, lesbian, transsexual has a biological basis. It's not sure. It's not certain. Because there is no clear biological source of homosexuality, some people say that it is deviant and some people say that it is normal, it's accepted. Is there a scientific basis? Yes, somewhat.”

Mr Gertz attributed the changing stance of the APA on pedophilia to the fact that “pedophiles seem to have some brain differences” and, as the APA is following the latest research in the area of brain, and that would account for the “they are quick to change… their diagnosis.”

Since it has been proved that people with non-traditional sexual preferences have a different brain structure from birth, that’s become the reason, according to Mr Gertz, “why the APA is careful to divide people between 'having thoughts' and 'having behaviors'.”

“In other words, having thoughts about wanting to have sexual behavior with children is different than actually acting on them. They are agreeing that they might have a different brain structure. It's not saying that their behavior is acceptable. This is a personal determination, people have to decide themselves whether or not they are suffering from a disorder. It's political, it's religious, it's people's personal interpretation of whether it's a disorder as long as they are not acting on the thoughts,” – Mr Gertz said.

He also asserted that, as the US Department of Health and Human Services defines it, a mental disorder is “a mental pattern that causes distress and causes disability,” since mental disorders are defined by how a person feels or acts or thinks.

“Psychologists and psychiatrists are concerned with how people feel, they are not just concerned with making a diagnosis and calling somebody abnormal. They really want to help society. And clinical social workers as well. They want to help people who feel distress. And I think that's why the APA is so careful in its latest book to distinguish whether somebody has thoughts or feelings about something or whether it's actually harming their everyday lives.”

I don't ever say that people don’t have a disorder because if people feel badly or people can't function on their everyday lives, there is a disorder, there is something wrong. People are supposed to be able to feel healthy and happy and able to manage their everyday lives,” – Mr Gertz concluded.