This Sex Offender Expert Looks Deeper Than Most

Too many court-ordered sex-offender treatment programs across the nation are not only failing to help the offenders they treat, but also potential future victims. This is why I was so encouraged to discover the work of Dr. Jay Adams, a former California Department of Corrections staff psychologist, who has worked with sex offenders for more than 25 years. Dr. Adams believes much of the problem lies in the failure to recognize and treat the sex offender's own childhood abuse and trauma.

Being both a survivor of childhood incest and convicted sex offender (my transgressions involved adult women), I found Dr. Adams’ findings particularly relevant to my own experience in sex offender treatment. For two years (1999 – 2001) I participated in a relapse-prevention based treatment program in Colorado where my childhood victimization was dismissed as irrelevant to my treatment. This was incomprehensible to me. But only later did I fully understand that my therapists decided (privately) that my incest disclosure was a fabricated excuse to offend! No effort was made to determine if it was true or not.

Sharing this disturbing information with Dr. Adams, she kindly sent me two more articles describing her findings, and permission to quote them on MonsterMart. One of these MUST-READ articles, Victim Issues Key to Effective Sex Offender Treatment, is in the Trowbridge Foundation link on the sidebar.

Here are a few excerpts from Expanding Our Sex offender Treatment, Dr. Jay Adams Ph.D.

"...It is gratifying to see a rising current in the literature which is finally questioning the long-standing and widespread assumption that our sex offender clients are totally different from every other client population. This assumption has allowed us [the treatment community] to violate a number of our own ethical standards (Glasser, 2003) and to disregard many of the established principles of psychotherapy. One of the unfortunate consequences of the widespread acceptance of Relapse Prevention is that it has fostered a “cook book” approach to sex offender treatment, which may have attracted individuals to the field who lack the qualities necessary for effective clinical practice.”

“…Clinicians who treat sex offenders often experience strong counter-transference reactions when their clients present themselves as victims. This usually takes the form of blaming “the system” for treating them unfairly and/or blaming their victims for causing them to have sex. However inappropriate such blame may be, the feeling of being a victim is real and stems from early childhood experiences. Virtually all the sex offenders I have worked with in the past 25 years have had some history of sexual and/or physical abuse."

"...Validating a client’s feelings about his own abuse does not mean not requiring him to take responsibility for his victimization of others. Such validation does not constitute an “excuse.” It is in fact one of the most important things we can do to encourage him to take responsibility. It doesn’t make much sense to be continually telling our clients how much their behavior harmed their victims while at the same time implying that whatever happened to them in childhood is of no consequence."

GREAT NEWS for survivor/offenders who may have given up hope on this common treatment. Bad News for people who assume sex offenders CHOSE their afflictions, of which there still seem to be many. Many thanks to Dr. Adams! Look for more from her findings in upcoming MonsterMart posts.