An investigation into current issues in the treatment of men who sexually abuse children

Walton, Jamie, S. (2013) An investigation into current issues in the treatment of men who sexually abuse children. DForenPsy thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

This thesis provides a broad and diverse investigation into the field of psychological treatment for child molesters. A range of methods including a systematic review, a single case study and a primary phenomenological investigation were used to explore issues in the field. Following an introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 reviews the effectiveness of psychological treatment for reducing recidivism in child molesters. The results indicate that recidivism among treated and untreated child molesters is yet to consistently and clearly differ and that the treatment outcome literature is obstructed by weak studies using suboptimal scientific designs. In Chapter 3 the aetiology of a child molester’s offending is formulated using the Pathways Model of child abuse (Ward & Siegert, 2002). Treatment sessions addressing areas of criminogenic need are outlined and the impact of the sessions is determined using systems of clinical change on psychometric measures. The results indicate improvements in some of the targeted areas however these were not sufficient to indicate clinically significant changes on both systems used. Chapter 4 explores the lived experience of a sexual preference for children in a sample of five child molesters using the principles of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Four themes were identified. (1) It Creates a Battle for Me, (2) I’m Always Going to Have These Thoughts, (3) There’s No Help Out There and (4) My Interest in Children is More Than Just Sexual. The results have implications for clinical practice and are discussed in the context of directions for further research. Chapter 5 evaluates the Sex with Children scale (Marshall, 1995) which was used as an assessment measure in Chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a discussion and close to the thesis drawing together the implications of the research.

Please note that chapter 3, which details a real but anonymised case study is available only in the printed version.

Item Type: Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (DForenPsy)
Supervisors: Duff, S.
Chou, S.
Browne, K.
Subjects: W Medicine and related subjects (NLM Classification) > WM Psychiatry
Faculties/Schools: UK Campuses > Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Medicine
Item ID: 13778
Depositing User: EP, Services
Date Deposited: 19 May 2014 13:41
Last Modified: 15 Dec 2017 13:20
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/13778

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