Prägung bei Sexualdelinquenten?

Summary

The concept of imprinting, derived from studies of animal behaviour, is used all too readily by forensic sexologists to explain homosexuality, pedophilia, transsexuality, fetishism and other psychosexual deviations. With the support of ethology, imprinting is defined as an irreversible fixation of the learning mechanism as a result of sensory impressions, usually of short duration, received during a sensitive phase. It is a specific learning process with mutually interlocked endogenous and exogenous components.

The subject of imprinting is, however, still highly speculative, in view of the lack of adequate objective studies of the forms and phases of childhood sexuality, the possibility of re-imprinting and partial imprinting, and the time-lag, sometimes of years, that may occur between the imprinting and its manifestation. Equally uncertain is the question of standard critical phases, which may lie in the period of primary amnesia up to the age of 3 or 4.

An attitude of critical reserve is also indicated by the study of 507 cases of exhibitionism, pedophilia and incest. Possible imprinting incidents in childhood or youth were found in only 16 cases (3 per cent), and even these may have represented only secondary pathoplastic influences.