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Kelli Palfy, Ph.D. - Guest
is a psychologist and author, who first started her career as an RCMP officer that specialized in sex crimes. Today, Dr. Palfy works with first responders, male survivors of sexual abuse, and people who are bullied in the workplace. Dr. Palfy authored the book Men Too: Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse which is based off of her own research and experience in the field. |
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W. Keith Sutton, Psy.D. - Host
Dr. Sutton has always had an interest in learning from multiple theoretical perspectives, and keeping up to date on innovations and integrations. He is interested in the development of ideas, and using research to show effectiveness in treatment and refine treatments. In 2009 he started the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing a one-way mirror training in family therapy with James Keim, LCSW. Next, he added a trainer and one-way mirror training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and an additional trainer and mirror in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. The participants enjoyed analyzing cases, keeping each other up to date on research, and discussing what they were learning. This focus on integrating and evolving their approaches to helping children, adolescents, families, couples, and individuals lead to the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy's training program for therapists, and its group practice of like-minded clinicians who were dedicated to learning, innovating, and advancing the field of psychotherapy. Our podcast, Therapy on the Cutting Edge, is an extension of this wish to learn, integrate, stay up to date, and share this passion for the advancement of the field with other practitioners. |
Dr. Keith Sutton: (00:22)
Welcome to therapy on the cutting edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up to date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Dr. Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Today, I'll be speaking with Dr. Kelli Palfy, a psychologist who first started her career as a Royal Canadian mounted police officer and specialized in investigating sex crimes. Today, Dr. Palfy works with first responders, male survivors of sexual abuse and people who are bullied in the workplace. Dr. Palfy is the author of the book, Men Too, Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse, which is based on her own research and experience in the field. Let's listen to the interview.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (01:08)
So welcome Kelli. Thanks for joining me today. I've, you know, learned a little bit about your work. You had contacted me on LinkedIn and, gave me some information and I went on to listen to a podcast interview of you on the Trauma Therapist Podcast, which was really great to learn more about you, and got your book, Men Too. And actually the full title -- sorry, I don't have it in front of me here. The full title again?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (01:35)
Men Too, Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (01:38)
Yeah. So I'm really interested in the work. I've been reading it and it's really good. And it's, you know, it's eye opening. I mean, I think there's a lot I had known, you know, about working with trauma and my clients. And I work with clients who are males who have experienced sexual abuse, but just kind of looking at the statistics and so on, oftentimes, when we think trauma, we think women. And so I'm glad that you're doing this work. So would love to hear about your work and how you got going with this and your evolution of thinking, just hearing about your story.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (02:11)
Awesome. And two of the things you just said are part of my story, eye opening and evolution. So for me, it was sort of a journey of becoming aware that boys and men are victims too. So I started my career in law enforcement. My first position was as a corrections officer and I was, you know, young. And I remember thinking like, why are there so many men in prison? Like I honestly did not understand why there was such a disproportionate number of men in prison. And I never got that question answered. And then I went on to become a police officer. I was a Royal Canadian mounted police and I worked in the behavioral sciences unit of major crimes. So I was in the integrated child exploitation unit and we were, you know, we were considered the experts, but we were also the people who started up the unit.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (03:00)
So we were learning as we went. And we started the unit up in response to crimes that were being reported to us. Like we were just overwhelmed with internet-based sex crimes, like distribution of child pornography, that kind of stuff. And obviously these are real offenses occurring. So, they were training me to be a subject matter expert. And on one of the training courses that I went to, a pro hockey player came and spoke to us, Sheldon Kennedy. And he talked about his abuse by his coach, Graham James. And, he talked about the reasons why he hadn't disclosed sooner. And those reasons just broke my heart. Like he talked about, his abuser was his coach, obviously. So Sheldon knew he had the skills to go pro and his coach had the means to get him there.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (03:53)
So, you know, reporting his abuse might have meant the end of his hockey career. It also was his means for getting his family out of poverty, like his family was quite poor and he was making good money doing this. And, you know, he felt like other people knew about this and did nothing. And yeah, and just that, everybody was so proud of him. Him, he didn't want to disappoint them and stuff like that. So I was just like, wow, like these are legit reasons why he kept his mouth shut. And honestly, he talked about how he led a double life that whole time. He was, you know, on one hand he was a pro hockey player and on the other, he was being victimized. And ironically, that was the piece that really hit home for me, because I mean, here I was in major crimes, but I was also being bullied by supervisors.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (04:42)
So I was like, wow, I'm at the top of my game career wise. At least I thought I was you know, and I went home and bawled my eyes out all the time and I was an adult with a police and a gun. Right. I'm sorry, with a badge and a gun. And he was, he was a youth, a teen. With a dream for his future, right. So I just thought, man, if I can't stand up to my bullies and I'm a cop, like how hard would it be for a teenage boy to stand up to his sexual abuser?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (05:08)
So also, when he talked about it, he also talked about how he'd turned to substances for coping and stuff. So it also made me go, oh my gosh, this is why there's so many men in prison, right? At the time this was 10 years ago, or no, this was closer to 20 years ago. You know, there were no resources for males at the time. And you know, like I said, we were considered the experts. So, fast forward, you know, a couple years later I did leave that career because of the bullying and developed PTSD myself. So, you know, I had my own struggles. And just, you know, I was desperate to find something to be involved in that was important and something I could be passionate about.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (05:55)
And, you know, I started my grad school journey and remembered -- you know, I always say, God just kind of dropped this memory in my lap -- about, you know, hey, what about this? Like, you could do some good work in this area. And honestly, I was clinically depressed at the time and it was like this little light went off inside of me. I was like, yeah, this is important. Like we have a gross injustice males in society. So I just decided to pursue it and to pursue finding out more, because you know, like I say, we were supposed to be the experts and I knew nothing about male sexual abuse. And even at the time, like when I was in the Mounties -- RCMP, sorry -- we were investigating Canada's first sex tourism charge. And we had so many victims to identify, my boss told me not to worry about the boys, and I didn't question it. I didn't question it. And this was from a male supervisor. So it was just like, yeah that's not good.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (06:54)
Yeah, definitely. I was reading about that in your book and the sex tourism and then I think you were involved, right? You were saying, in uncovering a child pornography ring, and the scores and scores of people, and the contacts and so on is kind of overwhelming.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (07:14)
Absolutely. Like I used to do undercover work. And one of the things that we would do would be go online and, you know, kind of pose as a potential offender just to see what the activity's like out there. It was overwhelming. They were sophisticated, organized, predatory obviously. And just so many, it was overwhelming.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (07:37)
And how did you then get into the career of psychology?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (07:44)
Well, actually I had started my master's degree because I wanted to be a criminal profiler. And so, you know, things just kept going sideways in my career with the RCMP and, you know, basically the bullying was kind of prevailing and I you know, I didn't know how to stand up for myself at that time. And so I was already in my master's degree when I made the decision to leave the RCMP. And yeah, I just, I was like, wow, the only other thing I would ever really wanna do is be a psychologist. So off I go. And like I kind of looked in the mirror and said like, I'm not real big on moving backwards in life. And I said like, what is the one thing that would be better than what I did before? And this was it. So I was like, alright. Eight more years of school.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:37)
It's a big commitment.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (08:38)
Yes, it was. And a lot of work.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:41)
So it sounds like you went from working on a macro level to then getting trained to work on a micro level. And then now if you're writing and so on again, kind of getting more of a broader reach.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (08:51)
Yeah. Trying, you know. Kind of from that place that if I was considered the expert and I didn't know this, like, come on, who else doesn't know this?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:59)
Right. I know also I was hearing in one of your interviews that you also work a lot with first responders in addition to male sexual abuse victims. Can you speak a little bit about that?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (09:14)
Sure. I mean, because I have the background, I think it's a bit of a shortcut for us to get to the deeper trauma work because, I get the culture and they have buy-in with me typically because I understand the culture and because I've been through bullying myself and I've been witness to lots of traumatic events myself. So, they don't feel like they have to protect me from information. So that's really nice.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (09:41)
That's good. Yeah. One of my earlier podcast interviews was with Joel Faye, who's a psychologist who used to be a police officer also and is involved with the West Coast Trauma Retreat and first responders network and so on. And, you know, I was just thinking, as you're talking about this, you know, there's, there's a big similarity there too, for men not reporting abuse and trauma. And oftentimes that's a big issue with first responders is also about feeling the culture around looking for help or reaching out or admitting to struggling with trauma or struggles in general and reaching out to therapy treatments.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (10:22):
Absolutely. What I'm seeing is they often wait way too long until they're, you know, struggling in their marriage or home life or with substance, you know, alcohol or something like that. Actually I've got a little niche here. You know, one of my guys is going around telling everybody how much it helped and he is telling everybody, you look like you need to go.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (10:45)
Yeah, you got so many people. And before we get into it, I've got so many questions about the male versus female, cisgender differences around trauma. What kind of approaches are you using in your work around trauma?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (11:02)
First off, always psycho-education, right? Because I always want to teach people about trauma and about what they've already been experiencing to help them make sense of it. Right. And then I teach them coping techniques, like how to manage being triggered, how to identify when they are triggered. And then it's usually at least 3, 4, 5, 6 sessions in, or more, depending on their ability to self-regulate and ability to identify their own triggers. Then we'll get into some deeper trauma work. I'll do emotionally focused, but primarily EMDR. I love EMDR.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (11:42)
Yeah, EMDR is great. And emotionally focused therapy, like Les Greenberg's model, or like emotionally focused individual therapies, Johnson's kind of approach?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (11:53)
I've taken both their training, honestly. So yeah, I've definitely kind of made my own sort of cheat sheets comprising both of their work.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (12:03)
Yeah, that's wonderful. Perfect. Very good. So yeah, so let's talk about men and, and men in abuse. That statistic that you talk about in your book of one in six men having experienced abuse I think is very significant. Because I think you also put that five out of 1000 report the abuse. And I was even talking to somebody that's not a therapist after I was reading your book, and I said, how many men do you think experience abuse? And they said one in a thousand. And saying actually, yeah, one in six, it's significant. And oftentimes again, that doesn't come to mind.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (12:45)
Right. And Dr. Sutton, I mean, a lot of times this is beginning in early childhood or infancy even, right. We'd all like to think that this isn't happening in our backyards, but it is. You know, I was just kind of reviewing my notes before talking with you and it reminded me of a story of one of my former clients. And I'm telling you this because it's so typical. I had one client that I'd worked with abused by his sister. He's gone into the law enforcement career ironically, and ended up leaving that. But, you know, he's suicidal gets really low. Like I said, he left his profession, got really low, and took my advice, which was to reach out to a friend. Ended up having two friends drive four hours to come meet him where he was, because he was feeling suicidal and he ended up getting really drunk and disclosing to his friends why he was so low, and within 24 hours, both of those friends privately disclosed to him that they too had been abused, both male.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (13:55)
It's like the more I talk about it, the more I'm hearing. It's just incredible the way men are coming forward, now that they're starting to know that it's okay to do that.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (14:08)
I think that also you were discussing too, in some of the research, that when having the men in this one study feel out what experiences that they had had. There was a -- I forget the exact number -- but there was a very large percentage that had had sexually inappropriate experiences, sexually abusive experiences. Sexual experience, sexual assault, or rape, but a very low percentage actually identified as having had the trauma.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (14:36)
Absolutely. I think the statistic was less than 50% had recognized it, right. So that's a large population. I think if I remember this study you're talking about, there was males that were abused in their childhood and then some that were also abused in their adulthood. And in that result, only 7% of them recognized it as abuse.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (14:59)
In the adulthood group, you mean?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (15:03)
The ones that had been abused in childhood and adulthood. Only 7%. And that is pretty common that they're victimized in childhood and then they'll be victimized again in an adult relationship.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (15:15)
So can you tell me a little bit about the difference between, you know, cisgender men and cisgender women's experience of abuse and how that's different and how it kind of comes to talking about it?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (15:32)
Well, there's a lot of differences actually. I mean there's, first off, societal response, right? Like, I mean, like I said, what got me interested in working with males was knowing that there's very few resources for boys and men. So I mean, that is still the case, right. I actually just watched a YouTube video yesterday which was highlighting how Hollywood still laughs and makes fun of male rape jokes, right. So makes fun of male rape. So, I mean that is still very much the dominant theme in society, that boys and men are not really victims. You know, it's like so rare. It only happens in prison and if they go to prison, they deserve it, or that's the punishment for whatever their crime was.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (16:18)
Right. There's definitely that piece, you know, oftentimes when a boy or a man will disclose, it's minimized, it's just something even therapists don't recognize it. Right? There's research that shows that if you take the same sort of scenario male versus female, if it's identified female, psychologists will automatically assume sexual abuse, but if it's identified male, they don't assume the same. So I mean, even amongst our professions, it's under recognized. So there's definitely that piece, on top of it, the knowledge that it's totally socially acceptable for a female to be upset and to ask for help, whereas a man is always weak or feminine or effeminate if he asks for help.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (17:16)
And then there's the physical differences as well, right? Like both genders can be aroused during abuse, but obviously it's far more noticeable for a man. So that is something that offenders will often use against the victim to silence them. They'll say, you know, oh, look, you're enjoying this, oh, look, this is... you know? They get them convinced that this is something that the victim enjoys or whatever, when realistically their bodies are just responding the way God designed them to respond. So it's something that leaves victims confused all the time. I don't know that many women are confused about the fact that they're sexually abused. Right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (18:01)
Sure, yeah. So then men when they have erections or even ejaculation, ends up creating that confusion of, did I enjoy that or was there something about that. And, I think you even wrote too about that there was some men that, even sometimes again, because a lot of these abusers are people that developed relationships with the men, that there's part of them that even went back for that feeling. Or one client that I had worked, with when he was very young, he was seven, he didn't understand what was going on, but also he kind of would go back into that situation where the neighbor, how the older would experience the abuse. And so there was so much confusion, so much kind of, what was going on there where I was not wanting this, this was feeling skipped, but at the same time I was feeling almost compelled to go and get this feeling. And there's so much mixed up in there.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (19:02)
Absolutely. And I mean, of course we all enjoy relationships, and physiologically it feels good to be aroused obviously, but like you said, these children, they're not mature enough to understand what they're consenting to. They're not mature enough to understand the consequences. That's why we have laws, right. So again, back to the idea that any male child should be entitled to enjoy the same law as any female child is allowed to.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (19:41)
Yeah, so one piece is that, you know, oftentimes it's not identified as much even by providers, because not noticing there's another kind of difference of this experience that boys may have around this confusion, because of a difference in physiological manifestation of arousal or so on. What else?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (20:09)
Well, I think, you know, boys are trained from their youth to be protectors, and providers, and capable of always defending themselves, whereas females are allowed to be victims. So I think that's a big part too, right? Just, you know, sort of the same theme, but just the training, the shame that typically, children won't recognize the sexual nature of their abuse until they come to understand sexual matters, right. So then typically they will look back and say, oh my gosh, why did I allow this to happen? I knew better. But you know, they judge themselves as if they knew then what they know now. Whereas I don't think that sort of message that you should always be able to protect yourselves applies to girls and women.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (21:03)
Yeah, definitely. And I think that aspect, like you're saying too, "I should have known better" or there was even a client that I worked with who was abused by the babysitter when he was very young and part of the struggle he had and the trauma, was potentially fear that it was perceived as his fault, or that he was complicit in it and so on. And actually the parents had found out and stopped the situation and so on. But as an adult, we even did a session with the parents. And the parent was able to say, oh my gosh, I did not at all think this was your fault, and I'm so sorry you've been living with that. As I was intervening, I was talking to each of the babysitter and the kids separately, but again, in his child mind, he thought like, oh, I'm in trouble. I did something wrong. Again, like they're saying that aspect of complacence again, being complicit in it. And of course also women feel that too, but I think that idea of again, men are maybe socialized to feel like they have more power and control than women.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (22:19)
Absolutely. And I mean, the grooming process is, you know, usually quite elaborate. 90% of victims are abused by someone that they know and love or care for, somebody that's won the trust of the family. So typically there's a period of grooming in which time the child actually develops authentic feelings towards their offender. And that's the whole goal, right? Because the offender always wants to leave the victim confused and thinking that it is their fault, you know, "Hey, look, you asked, if you could see my puppies, you asked if you asked me to be friends" and, you know, they'll present it as if like this relationship just went too far.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (22:53)
Like they led them on or something. Yeah, so what else, what other kind of differences between the sexes that you see?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (23:08)
Well, I mean, I think those are the predominant ones. That wasn't typically the focus research, like the differences between what happens for boys and females. I could talk a lot more about why boys and men don't typically come forward, if that might interest you.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (23:23)
Yeah, that would be great, important.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (23:25)
I'm sure you were aware of this as a trauma therapist, but like a lot of the participants in my research had actually blocked their own memories for several years, right? That which is unbearable often gets buried. So that was a big reason. Worried about being blamed, which you mentioned already. Some of them had tried to tell people, but it didn't go very well. The most, second predominant reason in my research was they felt that there was no point, like "nobody was gonna help me anyways".
Dr. Keith Sutton: (24:01)
I don't know if this is documented, but I think oftentimes for many men, that's oftentimes the sense they're more of a withdrawer and feel like, you know, why talk about it? Nothing's going to change, not going to do anything or so on, where oftentimes, maybe women are more socialized that talking and connecting in that way is a way of processing, or so on. So that sense, like you're saying that this happened, there's nothing to do about it. So why talk about it?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (24:32):
Several of my participants in my research were abused by a bio parent and they spoke about the other parent being completely emotionally unavailable or having enough issues of own, or perhaps they were abused by someone outside of the family and both parents were emotionally available, but they had either another child that was like a lot of work, or the parent had health issues or mental health issues. So you know, the boy was feeling like, I can't burden them with this. Like they've already got enough, which is again, you know, messages that boys are given in their youth. Like, you have to be a provider, you take care of people, not burden them, right?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (25:14)
Yeah, take care of the family, be independent or so on rather than be taken care of.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (25:19)
Right. And I mean, sorry, I could have thought of this sooner, but just like this whole idea that boys and men never turn down sex and that they're always in control of their own erections, that kind of stuff, right? So as a boy gets into his teen years in adulthood and learns these messages, then of course they blame themselves.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (25:40)
Say more about that blaming themselves?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (25:46)
Well, it could be because their bodies responded or because they liked their offender or because, like you said, they went back, right. Because oftentimes offenders will target children who are emotionally starved, in need of attention. And, you know, the good part of the relationship is something that they really value and need. We all need attention and affection. So, you know, they choose to tolerate the abuse because the other part of the relationship is good. So then they look back and they go, like, how could I be so stupid? How could I, you know, what does this mean about me? Does this mean I'm homosexual? Does this mean...
Dr. Keith Sutton: (26:26)
Yeah actually, can you talk about that? Because I know that in your writing, you were talking about a lot of fears about, "am I homosexual or will people think that I'm gonna be a pedophile because I had that experience?" And not only the shame about what happened, but also the shame about fear of what people will think that is gonna mean for them and their identity, and how they're gonna behave in the world.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (26:50)
Absolutely. And that was a myth that was very strong. Like even 10, 20 years ago, this idea that if you were victimized that you would become an offender yourself. Thankfully we know that in most populations, that is not the case in Western culture. Anyways, I can't speak to some of the other cultures, but in Western culture, we know that less than 10% of victims become offenders. There's a great book that talks about this. If you're interested in more of that -- she might even be somebody you wanna interview -- Dr. Anna Salter, she was a psychologist that worked in the prison systems and she interviewed psychopathic sex offenders and narcissists and whatnot. She has a great book that is worth reading. And then again, you know, the fear that I think that is a big reason, it keeps males silent even still today is this idea like, if I "enjoyed" the sexual aspect of the abuse, what does that mean about me? And even if I don't think I'm homosexual, other people might. So that's definitely something that is a struggle for a lot of boys and men.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (28:03)
Yeah. And for many males, I think that there is a restricted aspect of a sense of gender identity. Whereas, you know, maybe young girls can like both the pirate cartoons and the princess cartoons, but the boys, if there's like the princess cartoons, like, oh, maybe there's something wrong or so on.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (28:27)
Oh, absolutely. And it would be, it would be like evidence to them.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (28:30)
Right, heteronormative or so on. And so having had this experience again, that there's oftentimes a lot of fear around being seen as not manly enough, or gay, or whatever, it might be that plays into that. Like you're saying, it's another reason why they're not sharing.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (28:51)
And they might think like, oh, obviously I had a radar for this or something, or it must have been written all over my forehead, that's why they picked me, that kind of thing. Whereas really they picked you because the opportunity presented itself when they took it, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (29:09)
I think that, you know, the aspect of male vulnerability is important. I know that you were just mentioning too, that you've done EFT training. And you know, in my couple's work, I use emotionally focused couples therapy and oftentimes in the dynamic, there's the pursuer and the withdrawer and oftentimes in a gender stereotypical relationship, many of the men tend to be the withdrawers. And as they start getting engaged in the stage two work and becoming more vulnerable, sometimes that is both unnatural for them and by definition, vulnerable, hard to go there, but oftentimes for their partners too. And oftentimes the reaction sometimes can be dismissing. Whereas it's like one partner can be vulnerable and talk about feeling hurt, if the male partner talks about that, sometimes it can be dismissed as, oh, you're just being too sensitive or, you know, come on, give me a break or so on.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (30:13)
In the way I conceptualize it often in the couple's work, most people aren't meaning to hurt each other, but when they are hearing that their partner felt hurt, their reaction is to try to explain or justify or say, well, stop it, I didn't mean it, or so on. You know, you shouldn't feel hurt because I was trying to do this or that, or, well, you hurt me too, so it's not my fault. But I think that particularly when the withdrawer, when men, can get more vulnerable, sometimes depending on their partner, it may or may not be accepted less because of those gender aspects that are kind of added on it.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (30:52)
Absolutely. And that makes me sad. You know, when we think about Brene Brown's research, right. About how, when we're vulnerable, it increases intimacy, right. So if one partner is shutting down the other one, they're shutting down their own intimacy. Because the vulnerable partner is going to rebuild that wall that you worked so hard to get through, right?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (31:10)
Exactly, yeah. I mean, that's the hope, right? The vulnerability engages the empathy, which brings them together more, but oftentimes, because men are supposed to be strong and the rock and reliable or so on, especially in some relationships that when they show those kind of softer sides of the areas where they're struggling or so on, sometimes they can dysregulate the partner. Because then they oftentimes feel they're left out to see if they don't have this other person booing them.So again, that vulnerability aspect again, talking about a lot of the dangers of vulnerability and what might happen if they share, and being a burden or being seen as sexually deviant or whatever, all those aspects play into why men might not share what their experience is.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (32:02)
Absolutely, and, you know, Dr. Sutton, as a former cop, I can tell you that I probably was one of those. I know I was one of those women that wanted men not to be vulnerable, and I used to make sport of it, right. Which I'm ashamed of now, but you know, just lack of knowledge and stuff. But I can tell you that getting into this career and working with police officers, I have redefined for myself what courage looks like and what a healthy man looks like, right. And I love being able to hear the stories about how their marriage is being improved because they're doing this work, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (32:43)
Yeah, definitely. By the way, feel free to call me Keith. I think also that there is a culture, and actually one of my dissertation research was on bullying and victimization in the schools and so on. And, you know, one aspect that I've thought about too, especially in middle school and that time period in adolescence where it's very much black and white thinking. And as they're kind of on the road to abstract thinking that there tends to be a lot of bullying or teasing to actually create gender normativity. You know, if somebody is acting effeminate, they get teased or something, almost getting pushed to be a certain way. And same also with women, if they're not dressing a certain way or so on, more feminine, then, you know, kind of getting teased or whatever it might be, or young girls. And I imagine that has to be true also in law enforcement that, you know, if somebody is showing vulnerability, they might get teased or picked on or something like that. Because you're not supposed to be vulnerable. You're supposed to be strong and tough and unaffected or so on. And so, you know, oftentimes at least in movies and so on, there's that kind of banter and teasing, if there's any kind of "weakness" that's shown.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (33:57)
Absolutely. There's a saying, we eat our own. Like sharks. It's terrible, absolutely.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (34:10)
That quote just reminded me of another quote that I heard in law enforcement, which kind of can bring us back to what we're talking about. When I worked in major crimes, our office was right down the hall from the homicide unit and the officer in charge of the homicide unit stopped me on the hall one day and he said, man, I have a total respect for what you do. He said, I used to think killing someone was the worst thing you could do to them.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (34:32):
Hmm. Yeah. Right. But then kind of knowing about the sexual assault and especially children, it's just... right.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (34:39)
It's ongoing, right. Research shows that the average length of a child, a male child being sexually abused is seven years.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (34:52):
And I thought too, that, in some of your work you were talking about how, I think what was it like some of the major abusers, you know, they were like averaging like 150 children that they had abused or something.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (35:10):
Yeah. Typically the preferential child molesters that will target male victims are more prolific in nature, meaning that's their life, their whole life intent is to offend. That's what they live for. I was just browsing this book again that I was just telling you about, and the doctor was saying, how much time do you spend thinking about this? "When I'm not doing something else? That's what I'm thinking about." So they're very, very focused on their objective, very skilled, very organized. The increased violence increases that threat. More so than might be directed towards female victims. So we know that male sexual abuse is typically more violent against the boys. It's just another sort of comparison, I guess.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (36:05):
And I think that, oftentimes at least for myself, when I think of a child that was abused, oftentimes, thinking of priests, coaches, these kinds of aspects. And I was wondering about also, thoughts on other children that abuse with generally age difference. And from some of my experience in both when I used to work in teen shelters and children's shelters that were kids that were taken out of the home by child protective services. And also in clients that I've worked with, oftentimes it's the 10 year old that's abusing the seven year old or so on. Oftentimes it's a victim of abuse themselves and kind of that idea of repetition compulsion, oftentimes they're trying to figure out what happened to them or so on, in their kind of experience of victimizing another child, but being a child themselves still while they're also victimizing. Can you speak a little bit to that?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (37:10):
Yeah. I mean, as, as you mentioned, children will often reenact what they've learned. Sometimes it would be to have a better experience of it or the sense that they are in control. And, you know, again, back to this lack of knowledge, because they aren't mentally, physically, emotionally mature enough to understand what they're consenting to or what they're advocating for. So again, this idea of why we have laws in place, because until a child becomes an adult, we don't consider them mature enough to understand what they're doing. So, sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought there. Where were we going with that?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (37:49):
Yeah, an older child abusing a younger child and any insight into the dynamics in that.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (37:59):
Yeah. I mean, I wanna say that if like, you know, like I know it's different in the states, but in Canada we have laws saying, if there's more than two years difference, then we can charge, because we would say that a child that's two years older than the younger child would know what they're doing. And we don't charge anybody under the age of 12 in Canada with the sexual offenses, I'm not sure if that's the same in the states, but, definitely, we'd be looking at that and saying, okay, what went on? What led this child to enact that, or to reenact that, right? How did they know about this? Where did they learn that like the offender? But yeah, it is very common, but it's also common, you know, you get the 15, 16 year old abusing the seven year old. So we would say that anybody who's kind of post pubescent would probably have knowledge of what they're doing.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (38:50):
Sure. Definitely. Yeah. Knowing that that's something that's wrong. And, what else stands out in your research? And I know you did this qualitative research, and I think you had mentioned, in what I was listening to, that you were interviewing folks at a conference, particularly for men who had experienced sexual abuse and getting their stories. And this is kind of a phenomenological book where you're sharing some of those stories of those experiences that those men had had. Can you talk a little bit more about what else stood out for you?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (39:33):
Yeah. You know, the one thing that stands out right now, just as we're talking is the fact that a lot of boys and men will not come forward until they're absolutely at the end of the rope. Right. Like they will not, even if they're in therapy, a lot of them will not disclose unless they're directly asked by the therapist or after years of building trust, sometimes they'll even deny it in the beginning, but there's research, which I quoted in my book, out of Iceland where the men reported that it came down to, I was either gonna kill myself or talk about this. Right. So it's kind of like saying, okay, before I kill myself, I'll talk about this and see how that goes kind of thing. So, we know that, like even in the general population males complete suicide about 14 and a half times more than females. So, to me, that kind of goes, okay, well, how many of those guys were male survivors or male non survivors that felt that they couldn't talk about it.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (40:35):
Males are also about 40%, more likely to die of an accidental drug overdose. To me, I see the connection there, right. They're trying, many of them might have been trying to forget the memories of being abused.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (40:49):
There's the aspects too, of active suicidal and passive suicidal. Like driving too fast, not worrying, putting oneself in high risk situations, not really caring if they live or die. Or wishing to die, but not really being able to or feeling like they're capable of doing it to themselves, but if circumstances occurred, that would help them out on that. Back to the kind of larger picture of men and gender, another podcast that I did earlier too, was with, John Hammel on his work and kind of rethinking the gender paradigm in domestic violence. And, you know, I think that a big aspect is the Amma piece, and part of what he was talking about is that oftentimes there's actually aggression, violence, you know, in both partners, which doesn't mean that one causes the other or so on, but that particularly it's oftentimes not looked at kind of direct from women to men.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (42:01):
And the way I conceptualize that is oftentimes, because men cause so much more damage and often have a physical power to overpower and so on. And so again, I think it also plays into part of that perception of men and their ability to be abused, and experience abuse. And again, the assumption is that the men are the powerful and the women are the powerless. And so oftentimes being able to look at those aspects, I think becomes difficult.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (42:41):
Absolutely. I wanna say, having grown up in an environment where my sister wasn't particularly nice to me, and then in my policing career, I did see females as violent offenders against their husbands. I wanna say the most violent damage done in any domestic was done by a woman.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (43:03):
Yeah, I actually am thinking about as we're talking, probably that is less reported also.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (43:12):
Absolutely. And it wasn't necessarily reported so much as he called and said, can you help me, like get her out of the house? Like she's tearing me up kind of thing. And I'm pretty sure that my boss didn't want me to press charges against her, if I remember correctly. Like, ah, you know, it's just little Annie, she's just like four foot nothing. Well, she literally bit the guy's nipple off, like... ugh. Was awful!
Dr. Keith Sutton: (43:34):
You're saying too, it's like, he's just asking for help getting her out of the house. Not saying I've been victimized.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (43:42):
Yeah, exactly. No, I don't wanna charge her, she's drunk, you know? Whereas if a male was drunk and did that to a female, actually the law is clear. You will lay charges, right? In Canada anyways. Or the guidelines are clear anyways, if there's evidence of domestic abuse you will lay charges. Now I believe I even remember questioning that, why aren't we gonna lay charges against this female?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (44:13):
I'm wondering too, on your thoughts about, like you were saying, that there were so many people online and in your book or in your interview as they were, you would go into a chat room or something, posing as somebody willing to share pictures or something like that. And then they'd be so persistent and follow the different chat rooms and so on. And that, again, it was just kind of eye-opening how many men were out there doing this. And I'm assuming that, of all these men doing this and the ones that are even identifiable or perceivable, what do you think this is about? What do you think that it is about men or these men or so on? Because I imagine a lot of them go under the radar, but are kind of involved in this.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (45:07):
A couple things there I wanna just speak to, if you don't mind. First off, we're not just talking about men, we're talking about female offenders too. I wanna say 30 or 40% of the offenders in my research were females, biological relatives for the most part, like moms and, cousins and stuff like that. But yes, we used to, like when I worked in the ice unit, we would seize a computer and we would, for example, get them analyzed by tech crimes and we would get access to their electronic address books. And they would be filled with other addresses of other offenders that we honestly did not even touch. I mean, we would have had the grounds to begin an investigation, but we didn't use our power, and that is the norm. Why are offenders doing this, why are they offending?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (46:02):
I mean, a lot of it is their sexual preference, right? A lot of these offenders develop the sexual fantasies towards young children in their youth and they feed those fantasies. Lots of times if it's an adult offending against another adult, sometimes we would recognize that, especially in the prison population, as more of a power thing, aggression and power and dominance thing. But when they're offending against children, it is generally about sexual preference. Sometimes it's about not feeling adequate enough to have sexual relations with other adults or not feeling capable of making relations, those kinds of things. But predominantly it's -- I mean, we don't know why they develop these -- but we do know that it's their sexual identity, like you and I might identify as heterosexual. And if we were to be told, okay, all of a sudden you have to be the opposite, that's probably not gonna work for you or I, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (47:08):
Well, I imagine the prevalence is much higher. I don't know if there's been studies on that, because I think like you're saying, your experience going into that world, the prevalence was so much more significant. Or even, I think you were discussing there was a documentary on the Catholic priest in Boston and the abuse and when they started going into it and looking, they started realizing there were so many that that priest had been removed or put on a probation or something. Again, the prevalence was so much more than one even expected.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (47:51):
I absolutely believe this is going to someday be discovered as the best frickin' kept secret right now. Honestly, it's talked about least of all by the victims themselves. We're changing.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (48:00):
So, I was going to say actually, what do you see as the future of this field or this recognition of men, and abuse? I was actually very surprised a lot of the research we're talking about was so early. I think one case you were describing was in the nineties about somebody coming out and talking about their abuser in a more public way. I wasn't sure if I was reading that right, but that was one of the earliest men reporting on their abuse. I forget exactly what, but it sounds like this has really been only a big change in the last 25 years or so.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (48:43):
Yeah, absolutely. One of my participants was in his eighties and he said, oh my gosh, when this happened, like in the seventies, nobody talked about abuse, let alone male abuse. He did find a group, but it was rare that they existed.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (48:58):
So what do you see coming up in the field?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (49:04):
Oh my gosh. Personally, for myself, you mean?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (49:07):
Generally you know, or if there's talk about research or developments?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (49:13):
I mean, I'm just trying to inspire other psychologists at this point to take notice, and people in the general population, and men to come forward. Professionally, I'd love to develop a course for psychologists, and I don't think it would take that much work. I just need to take a month off and do that. I would love to develop a course for psychologists. I'm hopeful to do a workbook for male survivors, like in supplement to my book. Myself and another gal from my church were considering developing a program for the churches, for males in the church population to be able to come forward and at least just get some psychoeducation. Those are all ideas. Right now, I am along with a colleague developing a children's book series.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (50:03):
So the idea that it's hard to have those conversations with our children, but it's necessary. In today's day and age, it is necessary. We have got two out of our three books completed. We're doing a series, you know, just like read this story to your child. One talks about the grooming and then a very minor offense, so that it's like not too hard to read to your kid, and how they report it and get support. Another one is about the child's experience of going to therapy and the therapy dog, and how you don't have to be afraid of therapy. And then the third one's gonna be about human trafficking.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (50:45):
Okay, good. We have the Those Are My Private Parts book that we got with my kids. I don't know if you've seen that one. Like stick figures or something, and it kind of rhymes, like no matter if it's the grandmother, or the coach or whatever, those are my private parts. It is something I think parents struggle with talking about with young children. Even actually I was coming back from soccer with my seven year old yesterday and he'd said, oh, we should get a book. And I said, oh, I've got a book with me that I was reading, your book. And he said, what is it about? And I said, oh, it's about kids when they're little and sometimes, people touch their private parts and they don't like it. We had a conversation around this. But it's something that I think can be hard, so I'm glad that you're raising the consciousness around this and around this problem. And I think, what's really going to stand out to me most is that one in six men are having this experience, but only five in 1000 reporting it. And I hope that for mental health professionals, as well as educators and parents and the like, just kind of having that knowledge might help broach the subject with clients that might not share this or not bring this outright. And looking for these aspects, in addition to the experience of women. So thank you so much for your work and I appreciate taking the time today.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (52:17):
My pleasure! If you don't mind, I would just love to add that, that book that you were talking about, Those Are My Private Parts, I think our books would be sort of like the next stage, like, okay, you know that. And that's one thing we do put in our books, that we assume that you've already talked to your children about their private parts. So then we are identifying, look, this is somebody who presented as your friend. And he was your friend for a long time, and now he's not.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (52:42):
Well, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. And, I look forward to sharing this with other folks.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (52:51):
Thank you. Much appreciated myself. Bye bye.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (52:55):
Thank you for joining us. If you're wanting to use this podcast to earn continuing education credits, please go to our website at therapyonthecuttingedge.com. Our podcast is brought to you by the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing in-person and remote therapy in the San Francisco Bay Area. IAP provides screening for licensed clinicians through our in-person and online programs, as well as our treatment for children, adolescents, families, couples, and individual adults. For more information, go to sfiapp.com or call (415) 617-5932. Also, we really appreciate feedback, and if you have something you're interested in, something that's on the cutting edge of the field of therapy, and think clinicians should know about it, send us an email or call us. We're always looking for the advancements in the field of psychotherapy to help in creating lasting changes for our clients.
Welcome to therapy on the cutting edge, a podcast for therapists who want to be up to date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Dr. Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Today, I'll be speaking with Dr. Kelli Palfy, a psychologist who first started her career as a Royal Canadian mounted police officer and specialized in investigating sex crimes. Today, Dr. Palfy works with first responders, male survivors of sexual abuse and people who are bullied in the workplace. Dr. Palfy is the author of the book, Men Too, Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse, which is based on her own research and experience in the field. Let's listen to the interview.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (01:08)
So welcome Kelli. Thanks for joining me today. I've, you know, learned a little bit about your work. You had contacted me on LinkedIn and, gave me some information and I went on to listen to a podcast interview of you on the Trauma Therapist Podcast, which was really great to learn more about you, and got your book, Men Too. And actually the full title -- sorry, I don't have it in front of me here. The full title again?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (01:35)
Men Too, Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (01:38)
Yeah. So I'm really interested in the work. I've been reading it and it's really good. And it's, you know, it's eye opening. I mean, I think there's a lot I had known, you know, about working with trauma and my clients. And I work with clients who are males who have experienced sexual abuse, but just kind of looking at the statistics and so on, oftentimes, when we think trauma, we think women. And so I'm glad that you're doing this work. So would love to hear about your work and how you got going with this and your evolution of thinking, just hearing about your story.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (02:11)
Awesome. And two of the things you just said are part of my story, eye opening and evolution. So for me, it was sort of a journey of becoming aware that boys and men are victims too. So I started my career in law enforcement. My first position was as a corrections officer and I was, you know, young. And I remember thinking like, why are there so many men in prison? Like I honestly did not understand why there was such a disproportionate number of men in prison. And I never got that question answered. And then I went on to become a police officer. I was a Royal Canadian mounted police and I worked in the behavioral sciences unit of major crimes. So I was in the integrated child exploitation unit and we were, you know, we were considered the experts, but we were also the people who started up the unit.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (03:00)
So we were learning as we went. And we started the unit up in response to crimes that were being reported to us. Like we were just overwhelmed with internet-based sex crimes, like distribution of child pornography, that kind of stuff. And obviously these are real offenses occurring. So, they were training me to be a subject matter expert. And on one of the training courses that I went to, a pro hockey player came and spoke to us, Sheldon Kennedy. And he talked about his abuse by his coach, Graham James. And, he talked about the reasons why he hadn't disclosed sooner. And those reasons just broke my heart. Like he talked about, his abuser was his coach, obviously. So Sheldon knew he had the skills to go pro and his coach had the means to get him there.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (03:53)
So, you know, reporting his abuse might have meant the end of his hockey career. It also was his means for getting his family out of poverty, like his family was quite poor and he was making good money doing this. And, you know, he felt like other people knew about this and did nothing. And yeah, and just that, everybody was so proud of him. Him, he didn't want to disappoint them and stuff like that. So I was just like, wow, like these are legit reasons why he kept his mouth shut. And honestly, he talked about how he led a double life that whole time. He was, you know, on one hand he was a pro hockey player and on the other, he was being victimized. And ironically, that was the piece that really hit home for me, because I mean, here I was in major crimes, but I was also being bullied by supervisors.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (04:42)
So I was like, wow, I'm at the top of my game career wise. At least I thought I was you know, and I went home and bawled my eyes out all the time and I was an adult with a police and a gun. Right. I'm sorry, with a badge and a gun. And he was, he was a youth, a teen. With a dream for his future, right. So I just thought, man, if I can't stand up to my bullies and I'm a cop, like how hard would it be for a teenage boy to stand up to his sexual abuser?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (05:08)
So also, when he talked about it, he also talked about how he'd turned to substances for coping and stuff. So it also made me go, oh my gosh, this is why there's so many men in prison, right? At the time this was 10 years ago, or no, this was closer to 20 years ago. You know, there were no resources for males at the time. And you know, like I said, we were considered the experts. So, fast forward, you know, a couple years later I did leave that career because of the bullying and developed PTSD myself. So, you know, I had my own struggles. And just, you know, I was desperate to find something to be involved in that was important and something I could be passionate about.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (05:55)
And, you know, I started my grad school journey and remembered -- you know, I always say, God just kind of dropped this memory in my lap -- about, you know, hey, what about this? Like, you could do some good work in this area. And honestly, I was clinically depressed at the time and it was like this little light went off inside of me. I was like, yeah, this is important. Like we have a gross injustice males in society. So I just decided to pursue it and to pursue finding out more, because you know, like I say, we were supposed to be the experts and I knew nothing about male sexual abuse. And even at the time, like when I was in the Mounties -- RCMP, sorry -- we were investigating Canada's first sex tourism charge. And we had so many victims to identify, my boss told me not to worry about the boys, and I didn't question it. I didn't question it. And this was from a male supervisor. So it was just like, yeah that's not good.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (06:54)
Yeah, definitely. I was reading about that in your book and the sex tourism and then I think you were involved, right? You were saying, in uncovering a child pornography ring, and the scores and scores of people, and the contacts and so on is kind of overwhelming.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (07:14)
Absolutely. Like I used to do undercover work. And one of the things that we would do would be go online and, you know, kind of pose as a potential offender just to see what the activity's like out there. It was overwhelming. They were sophisticated, organized, predatory obviously. And just so many, it was overwhelming.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (07:37)
And how did you then get into the career of psychology?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (07:44)
Well, actually I had started my master's degree because I wanted to be a criminal profiler. And so, you know, things just kept going sideways in my career with the RCMP and, you know, basically the bullying was kind of prevailing and I you know, I didn't know how to stand up for myself at that time. And so I was already in my master's degree when I made the decision to leave the RCMP. And yeah, I just, I was like, wow, the only other thing I would ever really wanna do is be a psychologist. So off I go. And like I kind of looked in the mirror and said like, I'm not real big on moving backwards in life. And I said like, what is the one thing that would be better than what I did before? And this was it. So I was like, alright. Eight more years of school.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:37)
It's a big commitment.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (08:38)
Yes, it was. And a lot of work.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:41)
So it sounds like you went from working on a macro level to then getting trained to work on a micro level. And then now if you're writing and so on again, kind of getting more of a broader reach.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (08:51)
Yeah. Trying, you know. Kind of from that place that if I was considered the expert and I didn't know this, like, come on, who else doesn't know this?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (08:59)
Right. I know also I was hearing in one of your interviews that you also work a lot with first responders in addition to male sexual abuse victims. Can you speak a little bit about that?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (09:14)
Sure. I mean, because I have the background, I think it's a bit of a shortcut for us to get to the deeper trauma work because, I get the culture and they have buy-in with me typically because I understand the culture and because I've been through bullying myself and I've been witness to lots of traumatic events myself. So, they don't feel like they have to protect me from information. So that's really nice.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (09:41)
That's good. Yeah. One of my earlier podcast interviews was with Joel Faye, who's a psychologist who used to be a police officer also and is involved with the West Coast Trauma Retreat and first responders network and so on. And, you know, I was just thinking, as you're talking about this, you know, there's, there's a big similarity there too, for men not reporting abuse and trauma. And oftentimes that's a big issue with first responders is also about feeling the culture around looking for help or reaching out or admitting to struggling with trauma or struggles in general and reaching out to therapy treatments.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (10:22):
Absolutely. What I'm seeing is they often wait way too long until they're, you know, struggling in their marriage or home life or with substance, you know, alcohol or something like that. Actually I've got a little niche here. You know, one of my guys is going around telling everybody how much it helped and he is telling everybody, you look like you need to go.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (10:45)
Yeah, you got so many people. And before we get into it, I've got so many questions about the male versus female, cisgender differences around trauma. What kind of approaches are you using in your work around trauma?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (11:02)
First off, always psycho-education, right? Because I always want to teach people about trauma and about what they've already been experiencing to help them make sense of it. Right. And then I teach them coping techniques, like how to manage being triggered, how to identify when they are triggered. And then it's usually at least 3, 4, 5, 6 sessions in, or more, depending on their ability to self-regulate and ability to identify their own triggers. Then we'll get into some deeper trauma work. I'll do emotionally focused, but primarily EMDR. I love EMDR.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (11:42)
Yeah, EMDR is great. And emotionally focused therapy, like Les Greenberg's model, or like emotionally focused individual therapies, Johnson's kind of approach?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (11:53)
I've taken both their training, honestly. So yeah, I've definitely kind of made my own sort of cheat sheets comprising both of their work.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (12:03)
Yeah, that's wonderful. Perfect. Very good. So yeah, so let's talk about men and, and men in abuse. That statistic that you talk about in your book of one in six men having experienced abuse I think is very significant. Because I think you also put that five out of 1000 report the abuse. And I was even talking to somebody that's not a therapist after I was reading your book, and I said, how many men do you think experience abuse? And they said one in a thousand. And saying actually, yeah, one in six, it's significant. And oftentimes again, that doesn't come to mind.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (12:45)
Right. And Dr. Sutton, I mean, a lot of times this is beginning in early childhood or infancy even, right. We'd all like to think that this isn't happening in our backyards, but it is. You know, I was just kind of reviewing my notes before talking with you and it reminded me of a story of one of my former clients. And I'm telling you this because it's so typical. I had one client that I'd worked with abused by his sister. He's gone into the law enforcement career ironically, and ended up leaving that. But, you know, he's suicidal gets really low. Like I said, he left his profession, got really low, and took my advice, which was to reach out to a friend. Ended up having two friends drive four hours to come meet him where he was, because he was feeling suicidal and he ended up getting really drunk and disclosing to his friends why he was so low, and within 24 hours, both of those friends privately disclosed to him that they too had been abused, both male.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (13:55)
It's like the more I talk about it, the more I'm hearing. It's just incredible the way men are coming forward, now that they're starting to know that it's okay to do that.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (14:08)
I think that also you were discussing too, in some of the research, that when having the men in this one study feel out what experiences that they had had. There was a -- I forget the exact number -- but there was a very large percentage that had had sexually inappropriate experiences, sexually abusive experiences. Sexual experience, sexual assault, or rape, but a very low percentage actually identified as having had the trauma.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (14:36)
Absolutely. I think the statistic was less than 50% had recognized it, right. So that's a large population. I think if I remember this study you're talking about, there was males that were abused in their childhood and then some that were also abused in their adulthood. And in that result, only 7% of them recognized it as abuse.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (14:59)
In the adulthood group, you mean?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (15:03)
The ones that had been abused in childhood and adulthood. Only 7%. And that is pretty common that they're victimized in childhood and then they'll be victimized again in an adult relationship.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (15:15)
So can you tell me a little bit about the difference between, you know, cisgender men and cisgender women's experience of abuse and how that's different and how it kind of comes to talking about it?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (15:32)
Well, there's a lot of differences actually. I mean there's, first off, societal response, right? Like, I mean, like I said, what got me interested in working with males was knowing that there's very few resources for boys and men. So I mean, that is still the case, right. I actually just watched a YouTube video yesterday which was highlighting how Hollywood still laughs and makes fun of male rape jokes, right. So makes fun of male rape. So, I mean that is still very much the dominant theme in society, that boys and men are not really victims. You know, it's like so rare. It only happens in prison and if they go to prison, they deserve it, or that's the punishment for whatever their crime was.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (16:18)
Right. There's definitely that piece, you know, oftentimes when a boy or a man will disclose, it's minimized, it's just something even therapists don't recognize it. Right? There's research that shows that if you take the same sort of scenario male versus female, if it's identified female, psychologists will automatically assume sexual abuse, but if it's identified male, they don't assume the same. So I mean, even amongst our professions, it's under recognized. So there's definitely that piece, on top of it, the knowledge that it's totally socially acceptable for a female to be upset and to ask for help, whereas a man is always weak or feminine or effeminate if he asks for help.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (17:16)
And then there's the physical differences as well, right? Like both genders can be aroused during abuse, but obviously it's far more noticeable for a man. So that is something that offenders will often use against the victim to silence them. They'll say, you know, oh, look, you're enjoying this, oh, look, this is... you know? They get them convinced that this is something that the victim enjoys or whatever, when realistically their bodies are just responding the way God designed them to respond. So it's something that leaves victims confused all the time. I don't know that many women are confused about the fact that they're sexually abused. Right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (18:01)
Sure, yeah. So then men when they have erections or even ejaculation, ends up creating that confusion of, did I enjoy that or was there something about that. And, I think you even wrote too about that there was some men that, even sometimes again, because a lot of these abusers are people that developed relationships with the men, that there's part of them that even went back for that feeling. Or one client that I had worked, with when he was very young, he was seven, he didn't understand what was going on, but also he kind of would go back into that situation where the neighbor, how the older would experience the abuse. And so there was so much confusion, so much kind of, what was going on there where I was not wanting this, this was feeling skipped, but at the same time I was feeling almost compelled to go and get this feeling. And there's so much mixed up in there.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (19:02)
Absolutely. And I mean, of course we all enjoy relationships, and physiologically it feels good to be aroused obviously, but like you said, these children, they're not mature enough to understand what they're consenting to. They're not mature enough to understand the consequences. That's why we have laws, right. So again, back to the idea that any male child should be entitled to enjoy the same law as any female child is allowed to.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (19:41)
Yeah, so one piece is that, you know, oftentimes it's not identified as much even by providers, because not noticing there's another kind of difference of this experience that boys may have around this confusion, because of a difference in physiological manifestation of arousal or so on. What else?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (20:09)
Well, I think, you know, boys are trained from their youth to be protectors, and providers, and capable of always defending themselves, whereas females are allowed to be victims. So I think that's a big part too, right? Just, you know, sort of the same theme, but just the training, the shame that typically, children won't recognize the sexual nature of their abuse until they come to understand sexual matters, right. So then typically they will look back and say, oh my gosh, why did I allow this to happen? I knew better. But you know, they judge themselves as if they knew then what they know now. Whereas I don't think that sort of message that you should always be able to protect yourselves applies to girls and women.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (21:03)
Yeah, definitely. And I think that aspect, like you're saying too, "I should have known better" or there was even a client that I worked with who was abused by the babysitter when he was very young and part of the struggle he had and the trauma, was potentially fear that it was perceived as his fault, or that he was complicit in it and so on. And actually the parents had found out and stopped the situation and so on. But as an adult, we even did a session with the parents. And the parent was able to say, oh my gosh, I did not at all think this was your fault, and I'm so sorry you've been living with that. As I was intervening, I was talking to each of the babysitter and the kids separately, but again, in his child mind, he thought like, oh, I'm in trouble. I did something wrong. Again, like they're saying that aspect of complacence again, being complicit in it. And of course also women feel that too, but I think that idea of again, men are maybe socialized to feel like they have more power and control than women.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (22:19)
Absolutely. And I mean, the grooming process is, you know, usually quite elaborate. 90% of victims are abused by someone that they know and love or care for, somebody that's won the trust of the family. So typically there's a period of grooming in which time the child actually develops authentic feelings towards their offender. And that's the whole goal, right? Because the offender always wants to leave the victim confused and thinking that it is their fault, you know, "Hey, look, you asked, if you could see my puppies, you asked if you asked me to be friends" and, you know, they'll present it as if like this relationship just went too far.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (22:53)
Like they led them on or something. Yeah, so what else, what other kind of differences between the sexes that you see?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (23:08)
Well, I mean, I think those are the predominant ones. That wasn't typically the focus research, like the differences between what happens for boys and females. I could talk a lot more about why boys and men don't typically come forward, if that might interest you.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (23:23)
Yeah, that would be great, important.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (23:25)
I'm sure you were aware of this as a trauma therapist, but like a lot of the participants in my research had actually blocked their own memories for several years, right? That which is unbearable often gets buried. So that was a big reason. Worried about being blamed, which you mentioned already. Some of them had tried to tell people, but it didn't go very well. The most, second predominant reason in my research was they felt that there was no point, like "nobody was gonna help me anyways".
Dr. Keith Sutton: (24:01)
I don't know if this is documented, but I think oftentimes for many men, that's oftentimes the sense they're more of a withdrawer and feel like, you know, why talk about it? Nothing's going to change, not going to do anything or so on, where oftentimes, maybe women are more socialized that talking and connecting in that way is a way of processing, or so on. So that sense, like you're saying that this happened, there's nothing to do about it. So why talk about it?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (24:32):
Several of my participants in my research were abused by a bio parent and they spoke about the other parent being completely emotionally unavailable or having enough issues of own, or perhaps they were abused by someone outside of the family and both parents were emotionally available, but they had either another child that was like a lot of work, or the parent had health issues or mental health issues. So you know, the boy was feeling like, I can't burden them with this. Like they've already got enough, which is again, you know, messages that boys are given in their youth. Like, you have to be a provider, you take care of people, not burden them, right?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (25:14)
Yeah, take care of the family, be independent or so on rather than be taken care of.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (25:19)
Right. And I mean, sorry, I could have thought of this sooner, but just like this whole idea that boys and men never turn down sex and that they're always in control of their own erections, that kind of stuff, right? So as a boy gets into his teen years in adulthood and learns these messages, then of course they blame themselves.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (25:40)
Say more about that blaming themselves?
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (25:46)
Well, it could be because their bodies responded or because they liked their offender or because, like you said, they went back, right. Because oftentimes offenders will target children who are emotionally starved, in need of attention. And, you know, the good part of the relationship is something that they really value and need. We all need attention and affection. So, you know, they choose to tolerate the abuse because the other part of the relationship is good. So then they look back and they go, like, how could I be so stupid? How could I, you know, what does this mean about me? Does this mean I'm homosexual? Does this mean...
Dr. Keith Sutton: (26:26)
Yeah actually, can you talk about that? Because I know that in your writing, you were talking about a lot of fears about, "am I homosexual or will people think that I'm gonna be a pedophile because I had that experience?" And not only the shame about what happened, but also the shame about fear of what people will think that is gonna mean for them and their identity, and how they're gonna behave in the world.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (26:50)
Absolutely. And that was a myth that was very strong. Like even 10, 20 years ago, this idea that if you were victimized that you would become an offender yourself. Thankfully we know that in most populations, that is not the case in Western culture. Anyways, I can't speak to some of the other cultures, but in Western culture, we know that less than 10% of victims become offenders. There's a great book that talks about this. If you're interested in more of that -- she might even be somebody you wanna interview -- Dr. Anna Salter, she was a psychologist that worked in the prison systems and she interviewed psychopathic sex offenders and narcissists and whatnot. She has a great book that is worth reading. And then again, you know, the fear that I think that is a big reason, it keeps males silent even still today is this idea like, if I "enjoyed" the sexual aspect of the abuse, what does that mean about me? And even if I don't think I'm homosexual, other people might. So that's definitely something that is a struggle for a lot of boys and men.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (28:03)
Yeah. And for many males, I think that there is a restricted aspect of a sense of gender identity. Whereas, you know, maybe young girls can like both the pirate cartoons and the princess cartoons, but the boys, if there's like the princess cartoons, like, oh, maybe there's something wrong or so on.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (28:27)
Oh, absolutely. And it would be, it would be like evidence to them.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (28:30)
Right, heteronormative or so on. And so having had this experience again, that there's oftentimes a lot of fear around being seen as not manly enough, or gay, or whatever, it might be that plays into that. Like you're saying, it's another reason why they're not sharing.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (28:51)
And they might think like, oh, obviously I had a radar for this or something, or it must have been written all over my forehead, that's why they picked me, that kind of thing. Whereas really they picked you because the opportunity presented itself when they took it, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (29:09)
I think that, you know, the aspect of male vulnerability is important. I know that you were just mentioning too, that you've done EFT training. And you know, in my couple's work, I use emotionally focused couples therapy and oftentimes in the dynamic, there's the pursuer and the withdrawer and oftentimes in a gender stereotypical relationship, many of the men tend to be the withdrawers. And as they start getting engaged in the stage two work and becoming more vulnerable, sometimes that is both unnatural for them and by definition, vulnerable, hard to go there, but oftentimes for their partners too. And oftentimes the reaction sometimes can be dismissing. Whereas it's like one partner can be vulnerable and talk about feeling hurt, if the male partner talks about that, sometimes it can be dismissed as, oh, you're just being too sensitive or, you know, come on, give me a break or so on.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (30:13)
In the way I conceptualize it often in the couple's work, most people aren't meaning to hurt each other, but when they are hearing that their partner felt hurt, their reaction is to try to explain or justify or say, well, stop it, I didn't mean it, or so on. You know, you shouldn't feel hurt because I was trying to do this or that, or, well, you hurt me too, so it's not my fault. But I think that particularly when the withdrawer, when men, can get more vulnerable, sometimes depending on their partner, it may or may not be accepted less because of those gender aspects that are kind of added on it.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (30:52)
Absolutely. And that makes me sad. You know, when we think about Brene Brown's research, right. About how, when we're vulnerable, it increases intimacy, right. So if one partner is shutting down the other one, they're shutting down their own intimacy. Because the vulnerable partner is going to rebuild that wall that you worked so hard to get through, right?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (31:10)
Exactly, yeah. I mean, that's the hope, right? The vulnerability engages the empathy, which brings them together more, but oftentimes, because men are supposed to be strong and the rock and reliable or so on, especially in some relationships that when they show those kind of softer sides of the areas where they're struggling or so on, sometimes they can dysregulate the partner. Because then they oftentimes feel they're left out to see if they don't have this other person booing them.So again, that vulnerability aspect again, talking about a lot of the dangers of vulnerability and what might happen if they share, and being a burden or being seen as sexually deviant or whatever, all those aspects play into why men might not share what their experience is.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (32:02)
Absolutely, and, you know, Dr. Sutton, as a former cop, I can tell you that I probably was one of those. I know I was one of those women that wanted men not to be vulnerable, and I used to make sport of it, right. Which I'm ashamed of now, but you know, just lack of knowledge and stuff. But I can tell you that getting into this career and working with police officers, I have redefined for myself what courage looks like and what a healthy man looks like, right. And I love being able to hear the stories about how their marriage is being improved because they're doing this work, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (32:43)
Yeah, definitely. By the way, feel free to call me Keith. I think also that there is a culture, and actually one of my dissertation research was on bullying and victimization in the schools and so on. And, you know, one aspect that I've thought about too, especially in middle school and that time period in adolescence where it's very much black and white thinking. And as they're kind of on the road to abstract thinking that there tends to be a lot of bullying or teasing to actually create gender normativity. You know, if somebody is acting effeminate, they get teased or something, almost getting pushed to be a certain way. And same also with women, if they're not dressing a certain way or so on, more feminine, then, you know, kind of getting teased or whatever it might be, or young girls. And I imagine that has to be true also in law enforcement that, you know, if somebody is showing vulnerability, they might get teased or picked on or something like that. Because you're not supposed to be vulnerable. You're supposed to be strong and tough and unaffected or so on. And so, you know, oftentimes at least in movies and so on, there's that kind of banter and teasing, if there's any kind of "weakness" that's shown.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (33:57)
Absolutely. There's a saying, we eat our own. Like sharks. It's terrible, absolutely.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (34:10)
That quote just reminded me of another quote that I heard in law enforcement, which kind of can bring us back to what we're talking about. When I worked in major crimes, our office was right down the hall from the homicide unit and the officer in charge of the homicide unit stopped me on the hall one day and he said, man, I have a total respect for what you do. He said, I used to think killing someone was the worst thing you could do to them.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (34:32):
Hmm. Yeah. Right. But then kind of knowing about the sexual assault and especially children, it's just... right.
Dr. Kelli Palfy: (34:39)
It's ongoing, right. Research shows that the average length of a child, a male child being sexually abused is seven years.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (34:52):
And I thought too, that, in some of your work you were talking about how, I think what was it like some of the major abusers, you know, they were like averaging like 150 children that they had abused or something.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (35:10):
Yeah. Typically the preferential child molesters that will target male victims are more prolific in nature, meaning that's their life, their whole life intent is to offend. That's what they live for. I was just browsing this book again that I was just telling you about, and the doctor was saying, how much time do you spend thinking about this? "When I'm not doing something else? That's what I'm thinking about." So they're very, very focused on their objective, very skilled, very organized. The increased violence increases that threat. More so than might be directed towards female victims. So we know that male sexual abuse is typically more violent against the boys. It's just another sort of comparison, I guess.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (36:05):
And I think that, oftentimes at least for myself, when I think of a child that was abused, oftentimes, thinking of priests, coaches, these kinds of aspects. And I was wondering about also, thoughts on other children that abuse with generally age difference. And from some of my experience in both when I used to work in teen shelters and children's shelters that were kids that were taken out of the home by child protective services. And also in clients that I've worked with, oftentimes it's the 10 year old that's abusing the seven year old or so on. Oftentimes it's a victim of abuse themselves and kind of that idea of repetition compulsion, oftentimes they're trying to figure out what happened to them or so on, in their kind of experience of victimizing another child, but being a child themselves still while they're also victimizing. Can you speak a little bit to that?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (37:10):
Yeah. I mean, as, as you mentioned, children will often reenact what they've learned. Sometimes it would be to have a better experience of it or the sense that they are in control. And, you know, again, back to this lack of knowledge, because they aren't mentally, physically, emotionally mature enough to understand what they're consenting to or what they're advocating for. So again, this idea of why we have laws in place, because until a child becomes an adult, we don't consider them mature enough to understand what they're doing. So, sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought there. Where were we going with that?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (37:49):
Yeah, an older child abusing a younger child and any insight into the dynamics in that.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (37:59):
Yeah. I mean, I wanna say that if like, you know, like I know it's different in the states, but in Canada we have laws saying, if there's more than two years difference, then we can charge, because we would say that a child that's two years older than the younger child would know what they're doing. And we don't charge anybody under the age of 12 in Canada with the sexual offenses, I'm not sure if that's the same in the states, but, definitely, we'd be looking at that and saying, okay, what went on? What led this child to enact that, or to reenact that, right? How did they know about this? Where did they learn that like the offender? But yeah, it is very common, but it's also common, you know, you get the 15, 16 year old abusing the seven year old. So we would say that anybody who's kind of post pubescent would probably have knowledge of what they're doing.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (38:50):
Sure. Definitely. Yeah. Knowing that that's something that's wrong. And, what else stands out in your research? And I know you did this qualitative research, and I think you had mentioned, in what I was listening to, that you were interviewing folks at a conference, particularly for men who had experienced sexual abuse and getting their stories. And this is kind of a phenomenological book where you're sharing some of those stories of those experiences that those men had had. Can you talk a little bit more about what else stood out for you?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (39:33):
Yeah. You know, the one thing that stands out right now, just as we're talking is the fact that a lot of boys and men will not come forward until they're absolutely at the end of the rope. Right. Like they will not, even if they're in therapy, a lot of them will not disclose unless they're directly asked by the therapist or after years of building trust, sometimes they'll even deny it in the beginning, but there's research, which I quoted in my book, out of Iceland where the men reported that it came down to, I was either gonna kill myself or talk about this. Right. So it's kind of like saying, okay, before I kill myself, I'll talk about this and see how that goes kind of thing. So, we know that, like even in the general population males complete suicide about 14 and a half times more than females. So, to me, that kind of goes, okay, well, how many of those guys were male survivors or male non survivors that felt that they couldn't talk about it.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (40:35):
Males are also about 40%, more likely to die of an accidental drug overdose. To me, I see the connection there, right. They're trying, many of them might have been trying to forget the memories of being abused.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (40:49):
There's the aspects too, of active suicidal and passive suicidal. Like driving too fast, not worrying, putting oneself in high risk situations, not really caring if they live or die. Or wishing to die, but not really being able to or feeling like they're capable of doing it to themselves, but if circumstances occurred, that would help them out on that. Back to the kind of larger picture of men and gender, another podcast that I did earlier too, was with, John Hammel on his work and kind of rethinking the gender paradigm in domestic violence. And, you know, I think that a big aspect is the Amma piece, and part of what he was talking about is that oftentimes there's actually aggression, violence, you know, in both partners, which doesn't mean that one causes the other or so on, but that particularly it's oftentimes not looked at kind of direct from women to men.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (42:01):
And the way I conceptualize that is oftentimes, because men cause so much more damage and often have a physical power to overpower and so on. And so again, I think it also plays into part of that perception of men and their ability to be abused, and experience abuse. And again, the assumption is that the men are the powerful and the women are the powerless. And so oftentimes being able to look at those aspects, I think becomes difficult.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (42:41):
Absolutely. I wanna say, having grown up in an environment where my sister wasn't particularly nice to me, and then in my policing career, I did see females as violent offenders against their husbands. I wanna say the most violent damage done in any domestic was done by a woman.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (43:03):
Yeah, I actually am thinking about as we're talking, probably that is less reported also.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (43:12):
Absolutely. And it wasn't necessarily reported so much as he called and said, can you help me, like get her out of the house? Like she's tearing me up kind of thing. And I'm pretty sure that my boss didn't want me to press charges against her, if I remember correctly. Like, ah, you know, it's just little Annie, she's just like four foot nothing. Well, she literally bit the guy's nipple off, like... ugh. Was awful!
Dr. Keith Sutton: (43:34):
You're saying too, it's like, he's just asking for help getting her out of the house. Not saying I've been victimized.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (43:42):
Yeah, exactly. No, I don't wanna charge her, she's drunk, you know? Whereas if a male was drunk and did that to a female, actually the law is clear. You will lay charges, right? In Canada anyways. Or the guidelines are clear anyways, if there's evidence of domestic abuse you will lay charges. Now I believe I even remember questioning that, why aren't we gonna lay charges against this female?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (44:13):
I'm wondering too, on your thoughts about, like you were saying, that there were so many people online and in your book or in your interview as they were, you would go into a chat room or something, posing as somebody willing to share pictures or something like that. And then they'd be so persistent and follow the different chat rooms and so on. And that, again, it was just kind of eye-opening how many men were out there doing this. And I'm assuming that, of all these men doing this and the ones that are even identifiable or perceivable, what do you think this is about? What do you think that it is about men or these men or so on? Because I imagine a lot of them go under the radar, but are kind of involved in this.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (45:07):
A couple things there I wanna just speak to, if you don't mind. First off, we're not just talking about men, we're talking about female offenders too. I wanna say 30 or 40% of the offenders in my research were females, biological relatives for the most part, like moms and, cousins and stuff like that. But yes, we used to, like when I worked in the ice unit, we would seize a computer and we would, for example, get them analyzed by tech crimes and we would get access to their electronic address books. And they would be filled with other addresses of other offenders that we honestly did not even touch. I mean, we would have had the grounds to begin an investigation, but we didn't use our power, and that is the norm. Why are offenders doing this, why are they offending?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (46:02):
I mean, a lot of it is their sexual preference, right? A lot of these offenders develop the sexual fantasies towards young children in their youth and they feed those fantasies. Lots of times if it's an adult offending against another adult, sometimes we would recognize that, especially in the prison population, as more of a power thing, aggression and power and dominance thing. But when they're offending against children, it is generally about sexual preference. Sometimes it's about not feeling adequate enough to have sexual relations with other adults or not feeling capable of making relations, those kinds of things. But predominantly it's -- I mean, we don't know why they develop these -- but we do know that it's their sexual identity, like you and I might identify as heterosexual. And if we were to be told, okay, all of a sudden you have to be the opposite, that's probably not gonna work for you or I, right.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (47:08):
Well, I imagine the prevalence is much higher. I don't know if there's been studies on that, because I think like you're saying, your experience going into that world, the prevalence was so much more significant. Or even, I think you were discussing there was a documentary on the Catholic priest in Boston and the abuse and when they started going into it and looking, they started realizing there were so many that that priest had been removed or put on a probation or something. Again, the prevalence was so much more than one even expected.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (47:51):
I absolutely believe this is going to someday be discovered as the best frickin' kept secret right now. Honestly, it's talked about least of all by the victims themselves. We're changing.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (48:00):
So, I was going to say actually, what do you see as the future of this field or this recognition of men, and abuse? I was actually very surprised a lot of the research we're talking about was so early. I think one case you were describing was in the nineties about somebody coming out and talking about their abuser in a more public way. I wasn't sure if I was reading that right, but that was one of the earliest men reporting on their abuse. I forget exactly what, but it sounds like this has really been only a big change in the last 25 years or so.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (48:43):
Yeah, absolutely. One of my participants was in his eighties and he said, oh my gosh, when this happened, like in the seventies, nobody talked about abuse, let alone male abuse. He did find a group, but it was rare that they existed.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (48:58):
So what do you see coming up in the field?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (49:04):
Oh my gosh. Personally, for myself, you mean?
Dr. Keith Sutton: (49:07):
Generally you know, or if there's talk about research or developments?
Dr. Kelli Palfy (49:13):
I mean, I'm just trying to inspire other psychologists at this point to take notice, and people in the general population, and men to come forward. Professionally, I'd love to develop a course for psychologists, and I don't think it would take that much work. I just need to take a month off and do that. I would love to develop a course for psychologists. I'm hopeful to do a workbook for male survivors, like in supplement to my book. Myself and another gal from my church were considering developing a program for the churches, for males in the church population to be able to come forward and at least just get some psychoeducation. Those are all ideas. Right now, I am along with a colleague developing a children's book series.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (50:03):
So the idea that it's hard to have those conversations with our children, but it's necessary. In today's day and age, it is necessary. We have got two out of our three books completed. We're doing a series, you know, just like read this story to your child. One talks about the grooming and then a very minor offense, so that it's like not too hard to read to your kid, and how they report it and get support. Another one is about the child's experience of going to therapy and the therapy dog, and how you don't have to be afraid of therapy. And then the third one's gonna be about human trafficking.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (50:45):
Okay, good. We have the Those Are My Private Parts book that we got with my kids. I don't know if you've seen that one. Like stick figures or something, and it kind of rhymes, like no matter if it's the grandmother, or the coach or whatever, those are my private parts. It is something I think parents struggle with talking about with young children. Even actually I was coming back from soccer with my seven year old yesterday and he'd said, oh, we should get a book. And I said, oh, I've got a book with me that I was reading, your book. And he said, what is it about? And I said, oh, it's about kids when they're little and sometimes, people touch their private parts and they don't like it. We had a conversation around this. But it's something that I think can be hard, so I'm glad that you're raising the consciousness around this and around this problem. And I think, what's really going to stand out to me most is that one in six men are having this experience, but only five in 1000 reporting it. And I hope that for mental health professionals, as well as educators and parents and the like, just kind of having that knowledge might help broach the subject with clients that might not share this or not bring this outright. And looking for these aspects, in addition to the experience of women. So thank you so much for your work and I appreciate taking the time today.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (52:17):
My pleasure! If you don't mind, I would just love to add that, that book that you were talking about, Those Are My Private Parts, I think our books would be sort of like the next stage, like, okay, you know that. And that's one thing we do put in our books, that we assume that you've already talked to your children about their private parts. So then we are identifying, look, this is somebody who presented as your friend. And he was your friend for a long time, and now he's not.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (52:42):
Well, thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it. And, I look forward to sharing this with other folks.
Dr. Kelli Palfy (52:51):
Thank you. Much appreciated myself. Bye bye.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (52:55):
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