careers

Here is an article about a therapist, Dr. Stephanie LaFarge, who counsels animal abusers hoping her intervention prevents the animal abuse from being rehearsal for human abuse. I found the article because I was curious about Nim Chimsky, a chimpanzee who was raised in a human family. ("Nim Chimsky" was so named because the researchers were hoping to disprove linguist Noam Chomsky's contention that the human language capacity is inborn, thus cannot be taught to nonhuman animals.) The young woman who took Nim into her family is the therapist who now "stands between [abusers] and their next victim, or victims."

"Joey Cohen (not his real name) was perhaps LaFarge's most frightening client. 'He just went through the motions to satisfy the court,' she says. Joey came from a wealthy family and somehow got a mail-order bride from China. She arrived with her daughter and her daughter's shar-pei. One afternoon, the daughter walked in on Joey sodomizing the dog. She called the police and had him arrested. The wife and daughter fled. The dog was taken to the ASPCA's clinic, where Dr. Robert Reisman, one of the A's eleven full-time veterinarians, adapted a human rape kit on the spot in an attempt to collect evidence of human sperm from the dog. Because sexual crimes against dogs are surprisingly common -- and illegal in New York -- Reisman is now working on creating a canine rape kit, so that forensic evidence of sexual abuse can be collected and standardized.

Joey pleaded guilty to the cruelty charges and was sentenced to the intervention program. But the psychotherapy had little positive effect. 'Joey is not sexually attracted to dogs,' LaFarge explains. 'He's sexually out of control. He was so overstimulated by my attention, and the door being closed during the therapy, that he was at risk of being sexually out of control with me.' Before his treatment with LaFarge even began, Joey moved on to humans, masturbating in front of a woman sitting in a parked car. He was arrested, but the woman failed to show up in court. The case was dismissed. Today, Joey is a free man.

LaFarge doesn't keep track of Joey, in part because she doesn't think it would do any good. 'I called him once and he was convinced that I was calling because I missed him,' she says ruefully. During their conversation, she was aware that he was masturbating. 'It's only a matter of time until something else happens,' says LaFarge. But there's nothing more she can do.

When asked if she thinks any of her clients have the potential to become serial killers, LaFarge replies, 'Many of them do. The scary thing is, you never know which ones.'"