Professional Psychology: Research and Practice

While keeping in mind current psychological guidelines and legal criteria for psychological assessment activities, the author presents a 6-part framework for organizing and approaching the questions commonly asked in assessments related to sex offending: general psychological characteristics, deviant sexual interests, risk of reoffense, amenability to treatment, self-serving misrepresentation, and fit with specific formal criteria. Specialized instruments for sex offender assessments have little demonstrated empirical validity, although several active research programs related to risk assessment show promise. Recent proposals for the use of multistep and decisionmaking models also hold promise for increasing the quality of assessment procedures. Psychologists who are called upon to conduct assessments related to sex offending often have a need for a structure that delineates the relevant issues and provides some basic knowledge about appropriate assessment procedures. The need for such assessments can arise in several different contexts: a person with possible sexual deviance presents to a general psychological practitioner for either or both evaluation or treatment; an attorney inquires about sex offender assessment for a client; a sex offender treatment program inquires about routine assessments; or an opportunity arises to accept court referrals before sentencing or before release to address specific questions such as recidivism risk and amenability to treatment. The task of conducting assessments related to sex offending would be facilitated and made more meaningful by the availability of an agreed-upon conceptual framework or model within which to understand this area. Elsewhere, I have reviewed the applicability of frameworks such as psychoanalytic, physiological, and behavioral ones (Lanyon, 1991). The conclusions drawn at that time were that advances in the field were being driven by empirical data and not theory, that the causes of sex offending were multiple, and that there was some utility in considering a very general model involving predispositions and triggering factors. In my view, this analysis is still applicable, and it suggests that at least for now, approaches to assessment are best guided by practical needs. A detailed examination of the common assessment situations listed above suggests six underlying questions, which might be stated as follows. (a) What kind of a person is this—what are the person's general psychological characteristics? (b) What kind of an offender is this—what are the person's deviant sexual interests? (c) What is the risk of reoffense—how dangerous is the person? (d) What is the person's amenability to treatment? (e) To what extent is the person engaging in self-serving misrepresentation during the evaluation? (f) In regard to forensic contexts, how well does the person fit specific formal criteria, either legal or other, such as “sexually violent person” or