Definition of Paraphilia

DSM-IV-TR

Definition of paraphilia

Paraphilia is a condition caused by the impairment of the normal sexual functioning of the subject by factors such as uncommon distressing, recurring sexual fantasies, behaviors or urges. The subjects suffering from this condition have sexual urges to nonhuman objects, or children among other atypical situations.

What are the activities included in the definition?

Voyeurism is a sexual arousal when watching other people engaging in sex without their consent. In Exhibitionism, is the sexual arousal by performing sexual acts in public such as revealing his or her body. Trans-vestic fetishism is sexual arousal by either acting or dressing as the opposite sex. Masochism is a sexual arousal by inflicting pain to one self's body. Sadism is a situation when the subject inflicts pain on another person to gain a sexual arousal. Frotteurism is the sexual arousal caused by rubbing one's body against a person who is not willing. Pedophilia is a sexual arousal or a strong sexual attraction to adolescents and children. Paraphilia not otherwise specified- this group comprises of paraphilia that do not appear on the DSM manual such as coprophilia, urophilia, necrophilia, telephone scatologia, and zoophilia

Criticisms of this approach

There is a lot of criticism on the credibility of the definition of paraphilia by the DSM-IV TR. There is an argument for removal of paraphilia from the mental illness category. People with atypical, religiously proscribed or culturally forbidden sexual interests should not be labeled as mentally ill. Research showed that there was not a clear distinguishing feature between normophilics and paraphilias. This suggests that there are no valid reasons for diagnosing paraphilias as a distinct group or as a psychologically unhealthy group. If a person has paraphilia attractions and does not act on them is labeled as suffering from disorder according to DSM-IV-TR, this has also raised critiques.

The use of the terms exbitionism, frottenism and voyeurism should not be used for diagnostic purposes however should be used for research and development but for only those who do not fulfill the criterion B. Finally, there is criticism of the criteria employed and the balancing of false positives and false negative diagnoses in the DSM IV TR.

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