Treating the Sexual Offender

Enhanced public awareness of sexual abuse and an increase in the number of reported sexual abuse cases has put pressure on practitioners to develop effective treatments for sexual offenders. The behavioural approach to treating offenders is flourishing, but clinicians sometimes lack sufficient knowledge of assessment techniques and of the wide variety of available treatment modalities. Treating the Sexual Offender fills these gaps in knowledge by describing a multitude of techniques for treating sexual offenders in either an outpatient or inpatient setting. Topics covered include the initial assessment, aversive respondent conditioning, reconditioning, positive respondent conditioning, operant conditioning and adjunctive techniques. Each is described in sufficient detail for practitioners to be able to employ any of the specific techniques in their own practices. A discussion of future directions in behavioural treatment concludes the volume.