Abstract
Sex offenders represent a particularly difficult group of clients to interview and assess. There exists a complex dynamic that involves the intricate interaction of personality factors, distorted belief schemas, disturbed childhood experiences and traumas that, on presentation, impacts on the offender's level of motivation, co-operative attitude, willingness to disclose and readiness for therapeutic change. Often operating in a medico-legal context, clinicians are accordingly faced with the unenviable task of recommending management strategies, advising on treatment interventions, and offering estimates of prognosis and probability of re-offending for clients who exhibit cognitive distortions and are driven to deny or minimize their offences. Their imperative is to tease apart fact from fiction, reality from fantasy, and to offer advice that may have serious duty of care repercussions: this where the offender is reticent in disclosing, knowing that each revelation may have implications for sentencing, treatment or release/parole. This task is all the more challenging when clinicians are required to operate within an institutional frame of reference, acting on behalf of a third party (the court, pre-sentence recommendations), rather than the offender, and are forced to set aside their own personal negative reactions and value systems when confronted with the abhorrent nature of some offences, for example, those that involve violent rape and severe child abuse.
This training DVD well highlights the dilemmas and difficulties involved in the assessment of sex offenders. It is specifically intended, as the title states, to look at assessment issues with the aim of drawing attention to aspects of good practice for professionals working with this cohort of clients, and not a step-by-step set of guidelines outlining approaches to clinical interviewing. It is not a ‘teach yourself how to’ video. The focus is on the performance of, and rationale for, applied approaches used by the clinicians in their interaction with their clients; a factor that probably contributed to the distracting anxiousness displayed by one of the interviewers, and the slightly irritating repetitious dialogue in explaining aspects of informed consent and confidentiality. On the other hand, some viewers may delight in this, regarding the manner as more accurately reflecting a real-life interaction as compared to scripted exchange.
Overall, the producer's aims are achieved through the use of vignettes of clinical psychologists conducting clinical interviews with sex offenders, followed by a panel of expert clinical psychologists and psychiatrists in which the thread of discussion lends insights and commentary on the interview process. Viewers are offered the opportunity of seeing how clinicians interact with sex offenders, and gain an understanding of the rationale underlying their approaches. In particular, the inclusion of two types of sex offenders, the paedophile perpetuating the victim – perpetrator cycle and the rapist attributing blame onto the victim through her perceived flirtatious behaviour, offers the viewer an excellent opportunity to appreciate the varied presentations and range of emotions elicited when working with this diverse group. It draws out the inherent differences in styles and relevant issues to be addressed when dealing with remorseful and depressed offenders having to deal with their own childhood abuse, in contrast to the passive-aggressive offender denying responsibility and lacking victim empathy.
This is a highly useful and recommended training video that engages the audience and draws out the fundamental good practice approaches in dealing with different categories of sex offenders. It represents an excellent teaching tool to stimulate discussion and debate among postgraduate students on a wide range of clinical, ethical and procedural topics related to interviewing and assessing sex offenders. For the professional dealing with this population, this video is a means of re-visiting issues, and avoiding the pitfall of staidness and complacency.