That would just make it harder to prosecute people for CSAM

That's true, and an unfortunate part of preserving freedoms. That said, if someone is actually abusing children on the regular, police have a way of tracking that individual to catch them: investigations.

I wish police had to do them more often instead of leaving that job to the prosecution. If that means we need to pull officers away from other important duties like arresting black men for possessing a joint or pulling people over for speeding on an empty highway, I guess that's what we have to do.

it still involves photos of children without their consent

It involves legally acquired images and is protected under "fair use" laws. You don't need my permission to exercise your fair use rights, even if I think your use is disgusting. It's not my business. But if you make it my business (i.e. you tell me), I may choose to assault you and hope the courts will side with me that they constitute "fighting words."

Just because something is disgusting doesn't make it illegal.

As for that article:

“This is really significant. We now have a peer-reviewed study to prove that watching [CSAM] can increase the risk of contact.”

It doesn't prove anything, what it does is draw a correlation between people who search for CSAM on the dark web and are willing to answer a survey (a pretty niche group) and self-reported inclination to contact children. Correlation isn't proof, it's correlation.

That said, I don't know if a better study could or should be conducted. Maybe survey people caught contacting children (sting operations) and those caught just distributing CSAM w/o child contact. We need go know the difference between those who progress to contact and those who don't, and I don't think this survey provides that.

find a psychologist that can help them work through their desire

I agree, and I think that should be widely accessible.

That said, I don't think giving people a criminal record helps. If they need to be locked up to protect the public (i.e. there are actual victims), then let's lock them up. But otherwise, we absolutely shouldn't. Let's make help available and push people toward getting that help.