Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims

A Practical Guide

What forms of treatment are best suited for both the offender and the victim of child sexual abuse? How does treatment of sex offenders differ from that of other clients? Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims offers treatment alternatives for offenders and victims of child sexual abuse. Beginning with a concise overview which addresses both the prevalence of and responsibility for child sexual abuse, Salter presents an assessment battery specifically chosen for its relevance to sex offenders. Clinicians will find this a valuable --and long overdue--tool for measuring an offender's attitudes towards women, rape myths, cognitive distortions about child molesting, social skills, empathy, and alcohol abuse. In addition, practitioners are presented with several methods to treat offenders including group therapy, behavioral therapy, cognitive restructuring, and relapse prevention. For those involved in the treatment of victims, this insightful volume provides information on individual treatment, ways of minimizing trauma in victims within the legal system, and the use of and limitations of behavioral indicators of abuse. Finally, the importance of a therapeutic philosophy of treatment is emphasized, and a philosophy is advanced which holds the offender accountable for his or her behavior. Specialists in mental health, psychiatry, psychology, and social work will find the practical suggestions presented in this volume indispensable for their own professional work. "Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims is, in essence, the first how-to-do-it manual for dealing with what is clearly one of the most vexing groups confronting therapists. The advantages of this work, over those that currently exist are many: It is the most realistic of all of those works that I have seen; it is the most practical by far; and, therapists of every description will be placing cases they have dealt with on every page." --Frank Bolton, Private Practice, Phoenix, Arizona "I believe this book will contribute significantly to the literature in this discipline. . . . I find particularly valuable and unique the emphasis on program philosophy and the differences between treating sex offenders and more traditional clients. Further, Dr. Salter has integrated victim and offender treatment from both the clinical and educational perspectives, a rare but needed approach. The book is considerably enhanced by Dr. Salter's inclusion in the appendixes of 'hands-on' tools that will assist clinicians in implementing comprehensive program approaches. Dr. Salter has written a valuable book.'' --Fay Honey Knopp, Director, Safer Society Program "Particularly useful for learning in detail about the difficulties of treating offenders. . . . She provides excellent summaries on identification of sexually abused children without skirting the problem of false reports, especially in the context of custody evaluations." --Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health "Offers an excellent guide to the practitioner. . . . The book is written in a concise and efficient manner and covers an issue of grave concern. . . .Given its nontechnical presentation of relapse prevention, this book also provides a concise overview that many human services students would find helpful prior to volunteering or interning in the field. It is an important addition for certain specialized groups . . . including criminal court judges, probation officers who supervise child sex offenders, therapists, victim counselors, and social workers." --International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology "This manual is well-written and presents relevant and useful material. It provides the mental health professional with useful information and tools to assess and treat child sex offenders and their victims." --Family Violence Bulletin "The usefulness of the book rests primarily in its articulation of the special dimensions of offender treatment, in the provision of some very practical measures to assess offenders and in its suggestions to guide therapists through treatment and to develop relapse prevention programming." --Contemporary Psychology "This essentially 'nuts-and-bolts' book covers the occurrence of abuse, philosophy and structure of treatment programs, offender assessment, and treatment and spouse and victim issues. There are also 17 outstandingly useful appendices. A genuinely practical book though theory is not ignored." --Journal of the Institute of Health Education