A retired Aurora police sergeant faces criminal charges for raping his daughter and continually sexually assaulting her and his two adopted daughters, but he remains free from custody while his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

  • @[email protected]
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    314 months ago

    A parent does not have a right to affection from their children. Isolating from abusive people is a healthy reaction. Forcing this kind of therapy is itself abuse.

    • @[email protected]
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      -34 months ago

      Usually. There’s two exceptions that I’d acknowledge. One is where abuse simply was not present, which does happen sometimes due to divorce, which young children can’t always understand.

      The second was when abuse was minor and something the offender might be able to overcome after themselves undergoing treatment, and there are no other family that could take the child. If there is a shortage of foster parents as there often is, it can be preferable to try to reunify over just sending the child to grow up in a shelter.

      Note, I’m talking about the therapy more broadly, not this specific case.

        • @[email protected]
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          -44 months ago

          Sure, but you’re not trying to force positive feelings, you’re trying to break down negative feelings that may not be based in reality.

          • @[email protected]
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            44 months ago

            That’s the same thing. Especially when much of reality where personal relationships are involved is subjective.

            • @[email protected]
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              -24 months ago

              No, it isn’t at all. If you have an arachnophobia, treating your fear is not making you like spiders. Simply addressing the aversion. Nobody properly engaging in the therapy is trying to brainwash kids into loving someone, just reducing the aversion.

              Check something more rigorous about the topic, don’t just use news articles of cases of failure and unethical choices to form your full opinion. You know damn well how the news is, what they profit from, how times where the therapy actually went well because it was used appropriately will not be reported. And social media isn’t much better when it comes to factuality.

              The Psychology Today article I posted properly cited its sources.