Just because an intervention appears effective, that doesn’t make it so. The history of medicine is full of widely accepted interventions that were actually harmful. During my professional career, I have witnessed the rise and fall of many approaches to sexual recidivism treatment. Most of these changes have been motivated by niggling dissatisfactions with current practice combined with compelling arguments for innovative approaches. Research has played a limited role in these changes. This is understandable. The delay between treatment completion and sexual recidivism makes strong evaluations prohibitively expensive. Public attitudes limit the funding that is available to “improve treatment for sexual offenders”.
In this presentation I review what the available research evidence can contribute to the design of psychological interventions for persons with a history of sexual offending. In particular, I discuss the relative stability of personality and community adjustment, predictable changes of development during adulthood and advance age, empirically validated risk and protective factors for sexual recidivism, and changes in dynamic risk factors. I conclude by an appeal to treatment providers to adopt the practice of continuous evaluation, and to document their successes (and failures) in a way that contributes to cumulative knowledge.
Cost:
$30 for WATSA/OATSA members
$50 for Non-members
Just because an intervention appears effective, that doesn’t make it so. The history of medicine is full of widely accepted interventions that were actually harmful. During my professional career, I have witnessed the rise and fall of many approaches to sexual recidivism treatment. Most of these changes have been motivated by niggling dissatisfactions with current practice combined with compelling arguments for innovative approaches. Research has played a limited role in these changes. This is understandable. The delay between treatment completion and sexual recidivism makes strong evaluations prohibitively expensive. Public attitudes limit the funding that is available to “improve treatment for sexual offenders”.
In this presentation I review what the available research evidence can contribute to the design of psychological interventions for persons with a history of sexual offending. In particular, I discuss the relative stability of personality and community adjustment, predictable changes of development during adulthood and advance age, empirically validated risk and protective factors for sexual recidivism, and changes in dynamic risk factors. I conclude by an appeal to treatment providers to adopt the practice of continuous evaluation, and to document their successes (and failures) in a way that contributes to cumulative knowledge.
Cost:
$30 for WATSA/OATSA members
$50 for Non-members