B4U-ACT News

Media A Harvard University graduate/Human Rights attorney recently completed a six-week cross-country trek interviewing minor-attracted people (MAPs) — including a member of B4U-ACT’s volunteer staff — for a documentary film focusing on their day-to-day lives. The finished product will be pitched to major cable networks. Research The results of a…...

Congratulations to Simon Fraser University graduate/past B4U-ACT workshop attendee Carin Freimond on the successful completion of her Master’s thesis, Navigating the Stigma of Pedophilia, which features the testimony of MAPs recruited with B4U-ACT’s help. On October 5, 2013, Co-Founder and Board Chair Russell Dick, LCSW, served as a panelist for…...

Continuing in our efforts to provide face-to-face opportunities for MAPs and mental health professionals (MHPs) to better understand each other, B4U-ACT provided a workshop at the National Association of Social Workers, Maryland Chapter’s Fall Clinical Conference on September 28, 2012.  Two MAPs and two MHPs jointly presented a workshop entitled…...

With the approach of World Suicide Prevention Day this Saturday, it’s time to address a contributing factor to suicide that’s been taboo far too long—especially since a small group of ideologues is fighting to suppress discussion and worsen the problem. Most of us know that stigmatizing people for something they…...

Today in Baltimore, Maryland, B4U-ACT brought together a range of clinicians, researchers, academics, and minor-attracted persons to discuss key issues regarding the entry for pedophilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. The purpose of the meeting was to promote a more…...

July 25, 2011 — B4U-ACT has sent an open letter to the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) notifying the organization of the inaccuracies and misleading information contained in the current draft of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), currently under revision. The letter…...

B4U-ACT sent the e-mail letter below to all members of the DSM Paraphilias Subworkgroup and leading officials of the DSM Task Force, inviting them to come and speak at its upcoming symposium. B4U-ACT suggested this as a way to restart the conversation begun the previous summer with a conference call…...

B4U-ACT joined with seven mental health professionals to object to an article recently published in the Harvard Mental Health Letter. The open letter sent in response follows: April 25, 2011 The Editor Harvard Mental Health Letter Harvard University Cambridge, MA Dear Editor: We wish to respond to the article “Pessimism…...

A letter to the editor written by Richard Kramer, Director of Operations of B4U-ACT, has been published in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. The letter “describes how the proposed DSM-5 criteria for pedohebephilia have been developed without following four key guidelines specified by the American Psychiatric Association (APA)…...

With great sadness, B4U-ACT announces the death of Michael F. Melsheimer, co-founder of the organization in 2003. Mike died peacefully on July 15 after battling emphysema for several years. He was born August 21, 1942 in Jacksonville, FL the son of the late Richard L. and Nancy R. Ison Melsheimer.…...