This issue continues the fifth volume of B4QR, and includes short critical summaries of five studies published between August 2024 and March 2025. The featured scholar in the “Meet The New Generation” section of this issue is Line Christophersen, a PhD candidate at Griffith University in Australia. The full text is available to read for free on our site.
Participants are needed for a new study conducted by researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, and Technische Universität Berlin. The study pertains to “Troubled Desire”, an online self-help service for people who are sexually attracted to children operated by the Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine (IfSS) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
The study aims to test whether interventions as a part of the Troubled Desire programming have a positive effect on reducing participants’ likelihood to view illegal sexual images of minors and improving participants’ mental well-being. People who wish to seek help because have a tendency to use sexual images involving children may be eligible to participate.
Participation involves using the resources provided by Troubled Desire (including self-help pages and/or chat intervention) over a period of at least 12 weeks. Interested potential participants may click the following link to participate or learn more:
The following message was provided by the researchers:
Would you like to stop using illegal sexual content involving minors and you are looking for support? On the Troubled Desire platform, we offer an anonymous and free self-help and chat study. You will receive professional support in a safe space – without fear of stigmatization.
We – the team from the Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Faculty of Medicine at the International University of Catalonia – are experienced professionals with years of expertise in providing therapeutic support to people with who are attracted to minors and people who use illegal sexual content involving minors.
Our first study (October 2023 – November 2024) showed that the intervention was able to help the participants. A big thank you to everyone who showed an interest back then!
For the new study, we have optimized some of the content and opened the inclusion criteria to allow a wider group of people to take part. What remains the same is that the help offer is completely anonymous, free of charge and subject to medical confidentiality in a protected, text-based chat.
Interested? For more information and to take part, click here: Chat study | TROUBLED-DESIRE Global Prevention Dunkelfeld
Disclaimer: B4U-ACT is not affiliated with Troubled Desire. Professional support provided through their service is not vetted by B4U-ACT, and may not be reflective of our Principles and Perspectives of Practice or Guidelines for Psychotherapy. For more information about our guidelines for the studies we post about on our site, please see our Research Ethos.
Today, B4U-ACT published a new report on injustices experienced by minor-attracted people and professionals within the mental health system and academia. This report was written and compiled by the MAP Mental Health and Human Rights Study Group, a working group consisting of ten therapists, researchers, and minor-attracted people. The group was formed in November of 2023 as a result of a discussion at a monthly meeting of B4U-ACT’s Dialog on Therapy.
Over the next several months the group solicited stories from MAPs, clinicians who work with them, and scholars who study their lives about injustices and unfair treatment they have faced. After collecting these stories, the group developed this document to educate professionals and the public about these injustices and the widespread impacts they have.
Our hope is that this document provides insight into the unique challenges and stigma facing people attracted to children and adolescents and the professionals who work with this population, and becomes a foundation for future work to address the systemic and structural restrictions which produce these issues.
B4U-ACT also wishes to express our deep gratitude to the minor-attracted people, mental health professionals, and researchers who shared their experiences of injustices, discrimination, harassment and other mistreatment over the course of the project. This report would not have been possible without you.
