| Summary: | In the current balance of the literature, interventions based on the principles of
relapse prevention are considered to be relatively effective in reducing recidivism among
child sexual offenders. Programmes of intervention featuring this approach rely on
extensive client self-disclosure. However, it is widely observed that members of this
population typically exhibit considerable reluctance in this respect. The engagement of
these clients in effective therapy is therefore especially problematic. Conventional wisdom
holds that a therapeutic group format offers the best approach to this challenge. Yet the
literature in the area of sex offender treatment has tended to focus almost entirely on
matters of procedure and technique, with little regard to context and process.
The aim of the current study was to identify factors contributing to the engagement
of men involved in a prototypical prison-based group treatment programme. A grounded
theory methodology was used to explore the experience of clients undergoing one
particular component of the programme: the offence-disclosure module. Data collection
focused on a key session within this module, during which each client presents his pattern
of offending to group members. Using an articulated thoughts technique in conjunction
with material video-recorded from the session, research participants were requested to
report in detail on their experiences during episodes of high personal salience. Transcripts
from these reports formed the core of the data for the first phase of the study.
These data support the value of the group format, but also suggest that clients adopt
certain disclosure strategies, which influence therapeutic engagement. Moreover,
considerable potential therapeutic value appears to be unrealised during clinical sessions
themselves. Interestingly however, some of the most profitable experiences, it seems,
occur outside the formal therapy group context. These experiences were explored in a
second phase of the study. Four distinct disclosure orientations are described, with
implications for both in-session and out-of-session engagement.
The outcome of the study challenges the widespread notion that the “resistance”
commonly exhibited by these clients is an intrinsic feature of those who offend sexually
against children. Instead, resistance is re-framed as a feature of disclosure orientation,
emerging as a dynamic relational element in response to the challenges of therapy. As
such, it appears to be amenable to therapeutic intervention.
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