Practical and Theoretical Roles for the Formulation Based Treatment of Sexual Offenders

Treatment for a given disorder is typically derived from a theory outlining its development and maintenance over time. In the child sexual offender literature, current theories suggest a specific range of treatment targets that, delivered in a manualised group based approach, have been broadly shown to reduce recidivism. However, we argue that this is unlikely to deliver the most effective treatment outcomes for two major reasons. First, most theories that currently inform treatment fail to account for individual differences in the development of sexual offending behaviour and the actual execution and relapse of a sexual offence. Second, the manualised group based approach fails to take into account a number of situations that may occur in the context of treatment. In this paper we explain how a formulation-based approach, in conjunction with a more comprehensive theory of sexual abuse and a model of the offense process, can resolve these difficulties.