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	Foley May Have Used 'Training' By Carol E. Lee Sarasota Herald-Tribune [Florida] October 20, 2006 http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061020/NEWS/61020006 Experts say the type of sexual abuse Mark Foley said he suffered as an altar boy from a Catholic priest may have become the model that Foley used, decades later, in forming his own illicit relationships with teen-age boys. "There could be an identification with the abuser that was like a training ground for grooming: how do you pick the vulnerable kids and how do you groom them," Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, a clinical psychologist and author of the forthcoming book, "Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church." "It's a way of understanding how Foley may have become the man he was, but it isn't an excuse for him becoming the man he was," Frawley-O'Dea said. Most abusers say that they were sexually abused as children, but the vast majority of adults who were abused as children do not grow up to be abusers (less than 20 percent), psychologists said. Those who do sometimes recreate the scenarios of their abuse. In Foley's case, the use of his position of power over minors parallels that of Anthony Mercieca, the priest who told the Herald-Tribune he had naked encounters with Foley when Foley was a boy. Victims sometimes re-enact what they experienced to deal with it emotionally, experts said. "Sometimes they're trying to undo the trauma that they experienced when they were young by, oddly enough, behaving that way themselves," said Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University and author of "Sin Against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of the Catholic Church." Abusers tend to start grooming victims with what is called "shaping behavior." The goal is to gain trust before making sexual advances. They start by showing interest, conversing with victims, giving them a little special treatment, then weaving in more and more egregious behavior. "It's not like all of a sudden or out of the blue," said Gary Schoener, a clinical psychologist and executive director of the Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis. "Maybe they have lunch together, have some chatting together, go to a ball game together and one thing leads to another until you get what you're looking for." Grooming would be akin to Foley's asking a page what he wants for his birthday or what his favorite food is. Substance abuse, including alcoholism, which Foley has says he suffered from, and depression are common among adults who were sexually abused as children, psychologists said. Mark Zelig, a clinical and forensic psychologist in Salt Lake City, said Mercieca's openness about the intimate nature of his friendship with Foley is uncharacteristic. "It's so unusual to have someone come forth like that," he said. "Rarely would a sex offender explain it in the way it's been explained. I would really question that there was only one victim." E-mail: carol.lee@heraldtribune.com
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