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Conducting psychosexual assessment and treatment with children and adolescents who have autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can be rife with challenges. Research and best practices have changed dramatically across the past two decades.
This online training will help professionals develop a deeper understanding of autism among children and adolescents as a multi-faceted, brain-based disorder and provide guidance on current best practices in ASD psychosexual assessment and treatment.
The most effective approaches to understanding, assessing, and treating juveniles who have sexually offended are those that account for adolescent development. Practicing with a “developmental lens” can help ensure that our methods result in prosocial behaviors and better lives. This training is designed to help attendees set developmentally appropriate treatment goals and promote teens’ ability to make better decisions and take greater responsibility for their lives. Dr. Ralph begins the training by comparing historical treatment approaches and offers insights into what we know about adolescent development, for example, how testosterone output corresponds to changes in criminal behavior. He further explores how these factors, along with what we now know about brain plasticity, call for a different response to adolescent crime than is being offered by the current legal system.
This online training focuses on how treatment providers can create and facilitate high-functioning treatment groups that benefit clients and improve treatment outcomes. It provides a historical overview of what works in group treatment and what the research evidence has shown. Areas such as group cohesion, the therapeutic alliance, and how member interactions deepen the group’s impact on each group member will form the center of these discussions. This training further explores how to build adherence to a well-defined, clearly communicated structure in order to create a safe and positive emotional climate. Special attention is be given to the challenges this work can create for clinicians; for example, knowing when to intercede and when to resist the urge to micromanage clients’ interactions and unwittingly impair group processes.
Many experts have suggested that pedophilia and pedophilic disorder are poorly differentiated by the DSM-5-TR. This is partly supported by three independent studies showing that a diagnosis of pedophilia does not predict sexual offending against children. The stakes are high: Without diagnostic clarity, we can fail to intervene appropriately, thereby perpetuating risk to children. We can also cause harm to the wrong people by mislabeling them.
Ensuring the safety of our communities and the protection of children is a shared priority. However, we have a long way to go in ensuring best practices in diagnostic procedures. In this webinar, researcher and evaluator Robin J. Wilson joins David Prescott to discuss the challenges that professionals and clients face with this diagnosis.
The urgent need for new approaches to treatment for youths who have sexually harmed was made very clear in research by Gewirtz-Meydan & Finkelhor (2020), …
In this training, the presenters explain how clinicians can apply the principles of the Integrated Assessment and Treatment System (IRATS) Model in both institutional and community settings. The IRATS has received empirical support from a variety of long-term outcome studies comparing various groups of treated and untreated individuals convicted of sexual offenses. The presenters discuss how clinicians can integrate treatment for serious mental illness with the IRATS model. The IRATS model offers a holistic perspective and emphasizes that client mental health needs are integral to the treatment concerns with which clients present. This is particularly important given that there is now a large body of research indicating that mental health needs are both directly and indirectly related to recidivism among individuals convicted of sexual offenses.
Though well-intentioned, policies and practices regarding sexual offending that are advocated by lawmakers and their constituents all too often result in efforts that are counterproductive for the long-term safety of the community. Just as problematically, they fail to adequately take into account the needs of the victims of abuse and do not adequately promote actions that can help individuals who have abused avoid re-offending.
The integration of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) can provide clients with a more empowering, collaborative, and effective therapeutic experience. Rather than focusing on the issues that brought clients to seek therapy, SFBT concentrates on cultivating solutions and leveraging the client’s strengths. By combining the collaborative, empathetic techniques of MI with the future-oriented, strengths-based techniques of SFBT, professionals can help clients achieve lasting change in a brief timeframe.