Karolinska Institutet has introduced a new treatment program with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to prevent sexual abuse of children. The program is primarily aimed at people who are sexually attracted to children and who actively want to seek help. The new program has already started recruiting participants and is internet-based, free of charge and anonymous. A digital and anonymous treatment program with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has recently been launched by Karolinska Institutet. The program, called Prevent it, targets people with a sexual interest in children and is based on a pilot study of an English version of the program that was carried out from 2019 to 2021. That study produced good enough results to now include three additional languages – Swedish, German and Portuguese. The treatment, which was developed by psychologists and researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, will now be evaluated within the framework of an international research collaboration financed with support from the EU. According to Malin Joleby, researcher at the Center for Psychiatry Research and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, sexual exploitation of children is a social problem that seems to be increasing in step with digital development. In Joleby’s research, she has focused on children’s consequences of sexual abuse. She believes this has been the basis for working preventively so that no children are harmed.
Digital and free CBT treatment
Malin Joleby, Photographer: Karolinska Institutet The CBT program is a treatment that extends over nine weeks. The treatment is digital, anonymous and free of charge, and is primarily aimed at people who are concerned about their sexual impulses towards children. – Our hope is to reach out to people who would otherwise not receive any care, in order to reduce the risk of sexual abuse. The treatment proved to be effective in the first study. The participants significantly reduced the time they spent watching abuse material, says Malin Joleby. The first study that was done focused on people who had an active behavior and who used child sexual abuse material. The pilot study showed that the treatment worked and that the participants reduced the time they spent looking at the material compared to placebo. About half of the participants who completed the CBT program had not viewed abuse material in the past week. Joleby explains that the program has now been launched in additional languages and that it is already underway on the Swedish front. The recruitment of participants began already in February, and in order to reach out to more participants, the program has applied to encrypted forums on the Darknet, but also social media and ads that appear in various search engines. – The study today is a follow-up study, where we continue to evaluate the treatment that is now given in several new languages. Here we focus on people who are concerned about their sexual impulses and their behaviour, says Joleby. – We know from the pilot study that the treatment is safe and well appreciated by the participants. Previous participants have described that the treatment gave them hope that it is possible to change their behavior, and useful tools to do so, she continues.
Anonymity – an important component
Today, anyone can sign up for the program, but in order to reach more people, they will cooperate with the police. The idea is that the police should inform persons suspected of sexual crimes against children about the CBT program. According to Joleby, however, the police will not have the opportunity to follow up if the suspect has signed up for treatment. According to the researchers, a prerequisite for reaching the affected group and at the same time evaluating the treatment program scientifically is that the program’s participants must be anonymous. – Our collaboration with the police is about them helping us spread information about the program. They will hand out a business card with information about the project to those who are served with suspicion of sexual crimes against children, just as the police can assist with other crimes with information about support organizations to turn to, she says. – People often end up in crisis when they are exposed, and then there can be a motivation to seek help. Police investigations take a long time, and it can take time from the time you are exposed until there is a trial and possible verdict. We want to be there and offer support to prevent new crimes from being committed, and to show that there is help to be had, Joleby continues.
Research project with the possibility of scaling up
The project is basically a research project, but according to Joleby, the hope is to be able to scale up and offer this type of treatment on a large scale. Today, the program is available in three additional languages. The aim is to study and see if the treatment works in a translated and culturally adapted form. The hope is that it will provide good support and that people who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to get help will be able to get it through technology and the internet. Today, there are a number of different actors in Sweden who offer help. Perhaps one of the most famous is PrevenTell, which offers a helpline for people who have lost control of their sexuality. The helpline can provide advice and support but also help to get in touch with treatment for those who want and need it. – PrevenTell is a fantastic helpline where people can call anonymously and get advice and help for treatment. But to get treatment you need to break anonymity, which we know many people don’t dare to do, says Joleby. The overall difference between PrevenTell and the new digital CBT program is that the latter is anonymous and internet-based, which is a big advantage, especially for those who live in smaller towns and cannot go to larger cities where help is usually available. Statistics show that the number of sexual abuses against children has increased sharply in recent years. According to the Allmänna Barnhuset Foundation, this is one in four children, i.e. six children in each class. Of the reported rape crimes in 2021, 40 percent of all rapes were against children aged 0-17 (3,913 crimes), figures from BRÅ show. In 91 percent of the cases, the crimes were directed at girls and 9 percent at boys. A media-attentioned group that works to draw attention to sexual abuse against children and works for better legislation is Dumpen.se, which is run by high jumper Patrik Sjöberg together with Sara Nilsson. The site publishes video-documented confrontations of adults who have determined physical encounters for sexual purposes with what they thought were children. We ask Malin Joleby about future collaboration opportunities with Dumpen.se in particular. – We want to reach out with information about our program as widely as possible, so that those who can be helped by it find it. We do not control who spreads the information, but anyone who wants to is simply welcome to do so. Among other things, we know that people on various abuse forums on the Darknet recommend our program to their members. says Joleby. – Our hope is to reach out to people who would not otherwise seek help and to be able to offer a treatment that is scientifically developed and evaluated, concludes Joleby. You can read more about the program and how participants can sign up here: https://www.iterapi.se/sites/preventit/
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