Children and Adolescents with Problematic Sexual Behaviors: Lessons from Research on Resilience

The purpose of this chapter is to show how research and theory on resilience contribute to assessment and treatment planning for children and adolescents with problematic sexual behaviors. This body of knowledge has a great deal to offer practitioners who are on the lookout for good ideas that they can use in their therapy and psychoeducation programs. Increasing numbers of programs are incorporating these ideas to the advantage of clients.
Children and young people themselves have ideas about their own resilience, and our task as practitioners is to find the “hidden” resilience in behaviors that are harmful and sometimes illegal (Gilgun & Abrams, in press; Ungar, 2004). I will end this chapter with an overview of their points of view. I do this because effective interventions start where clients are; that is, they seek to connect with clients’ points of view and build assessments and treatment plans from there.