Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Phil Rich, EdD, MSW, LICSW is the Clinical Director of Stetson School, a residential treatment program for juvenile sexual offenders and sexually reactive children in Barre, Massachusetts. He received his MSW in 1979 and his doctorate in applied behavioral and group studies in 1992, and has practiced as a clinical social worker for over 25 years. He has served as the program director of five residential and day treatment programs, and has worked extensively with troubled adolescents and adults in residential, inpatient, day treatment, and outpatient settings. He has 12 published books, including Understanding Juvenile Sexual Offenders: Assessment, Treatment, and Rehabilitation, published by John Wiley & Sons.

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In work with juvenile sexual offenders, it has become increasingly common to link disturbed or under-developed early attachment relationships to the later development of pathology.

Beginning with a detailed and critical overview of attachment theory, Attachment and Sexual Offending provides an analysis of research that links attachment theory to sexually abusive behavior in children and adolescents. This complete guide also extensively covers literature that relates attachment to adult sexual offending. A comprehensive framework for applying attachment theory to the treatment of juvenile sexual offenders is also included, providing steps for developing and implementing attachment treatment.

This important text will appeal to anyone interested in attachment theory and its application to clinical and forensic psychology. It is a valuable resource for professionals working with sexually abusive juveniles in a range of clinical settings, and will also be of interest to those working with adult sexual offenders.

“This is a fascinating and important book”
―Tony Ward, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

“Attachment and Sexual Offending is a thought provoking book that challenges the traditional ways in which we have thought about, assessed and treated juvenile sexual abusers. Phil Rich's book is brilliant and should be read by any professional who works with, and/or comes in contact with, juveniles who sexually abuse.”
―Robert E. Longo, Independent Consultant and Trainer, USA

“Attachment and Sexual Offending is a must for anybody working in the field, as well as for those who want to know more about this area.”
―Anthony Beech, University of Birmingham, UK

Aus dem Klappentext

In work with juvenile sexual offenders, it has become increasingly common to link disturbed or under-developed early attachment relationships to the later development of pathology.

Beginning with a detailed and critical overview of attachment theory, Attachment and Sexual Offending provides an analysis of research that links attachment theory to sexually abusive behavior in children and adolescents. This complete guide also extensively covers literature that relates attachment to adult sexual offending. A comprehensive framework for applying attachment theory to the treatment of juvenile sexual offenders is also included, providing steps for developing and implementing attachment treatment.

This important text will appeal to anyone interested in attachment theory and its application to clinical and forensic psychology. It is a valuable resource for professionals working with sexually abusive juveniles in a range of clinical settings, and will also be of interest to those working with adult sexual offenders.           

“This is a fascinating and important book”
—Tony Ward, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

“Attachment and Sexual Offending is a thought provoking book that challenges the traditional ways in which we have thought about, assessed and treated juvenile sexual abusers. Phil Rich's book is brilliant and should be read by any professional who works with, and/or comes in contact with, juveniles who sexually abuse.” 
—Robert E. Longo, Independent Consultant and Trainer, USA

“Attachment and Sexual Offending is a must for anybody working in the field, as well as for those who want to know more about this area.”
—Anthony Beech, University of Birmingham, UK

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Attachment and Sexual Offending

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

In attachment theory, the term "attachment" is actually a multidimensional construct rather than a word with a single fixed meaning, separating into attachment experiences, attachment patterns, and attachment strategies. There is a link between these dimensions of course, and attachment patterns and strategies develop out of earlier attachment experiences and later come to affect current attachment experiences. However, although they operate interactively and simultaneously to define attachment as a whole, each dimension represents a different aspect of attachment, each with its own meaning. Indeed, this is one of the difficulties in describing "attachment," per se.

The word itself has come to be synonymous with being attached, or having a sense of social connection and the ability to become socially connected. Yet "attachment" describes only an abstract concept, actually realized through the experience of attachment, the manner or pattern in which the experience of attachment is manifested, and scripts or strategies by which the seeking and maintenance of experienced attachment is implemented. In its grammar, "attachment" is a verb (to attach oneself to), an adjective (to have an attached relationship with), and a noun (an attachment exists between them). To this end, attachment is a process, an organized set of procedures, and a state of being. The attachment concept, then, is operationalized as a subjective experience, a style or pattern, and an approach or strategy. We seek evidence of attachment through self-report, the assessment of classifiable styles (patterns) of attachment, and/or manifestations of attachment-seeking (or maintaining) behavior.

Each of these elements not only begins to define what we mean by attachment, but also makes clear that use of the attachment label in exploring, classifying, and understanding human behavior requires different observational and measurement procedures for different dimensions of attachment, and at different stages in human development. The simple and often off-handed manner in which we describe "attachment," and describe individuals as attached or not attached (or securely or insecurely attached), is both inadequate and ill-informed. Attachment is no less complex and abstract than any other psychological construct or phenomenon of human behavior, and should be considered, explored, and understood in this light.

ATTACHMENT IN THE ADOLESCENT

It is not even clear if "attachment" in adolescence is the same phenomenon as "attachment" in infancy and early childhood. Certainly, by adulthood "attachment" has taken on a different meaning and relates more to romantic relationships, the parenting role, and, more loosely, other adult affiliative-social relationships. Adolescence, then, beginning in late, pre-pubescent childhood and extending to early adulthood, serves as a transitional period, bridging the developmental gap between the infant and childhood form of attachment and the adult variant, or outcome, of attachment. Adolescence, along with its many other related roles in cognitive, affective, moral, and social development, is presumably the period during which attachment is redefined and transformed, and in which the attachment experience takes on an entirely different meaning, fuels significantly different behavior, and serves substantially different purposes than childhood attachment.

Through cognitive and affective development and the unfolding of the biological and neurological sequence, during adolescence the experiences of childhood metamorphosize into something quite different, becoming crystallized in the still developing ego as aspects of personality. No longer the biological, evolutionarily driven survival tool hypothesized by attachment theory to be driving the behavior and psychology of the young child, as with human development in general attachment in adolescence is also transformed. Although attachment theory does not provide a clear description of attachment in adolescence, it presumably becomes the proving grounds in which the sense of security and self-confidence derived from early attachment experiences turns into the self-directed behavior, self-image, perceptions of others, social relationships, and behaviors that will increasingly define the adolescent and shape his or her adulthood experiences of self and others.

By adolescence, early attachment experiences and the sense of being attached are folded into mental representations and displayed in behaviors that do not resemble the internalized attachment experience and external behaviors of infants and pre-school children. The mental schema described by so many psychologists, built in part upon early attachment experience, is the key to what attachment becomes and how it contributes to and perhaps drives perceptions of self and others, emotional life, social interactions, behaviors, and self-regulation. Conceptualized by attachment theory as the mental schema by which early attachment experiences are hard wired into the central nervous system, embodied in the "internal working model" are the individual's experience of the world, sense of self and others, and strategies to make sense of, implement, and manage social interactions. In most models of mental schemata, this metaphysical mental map serves not only as the center of all intentional action but also as the location of the ego, or sense of selfhood. It is this internal working model that is probably the best target for understanding the impact of attachment on the development of selfhood and the transformations in "attachment" that occur during the transition from childhood to adolescence, and again from adolescence to adulthood.

THE LINK BETWEEN RESEARCH AND THEORY

Regardless of increasing truisms that imply or assert that the development of pathology in sexual offenders is linked to underdeveloped attachment in children, there is little evidence that the existence of attachment deficits has any direct connection to the development of sexually abusive behavior in children or adolescents, and hence adults. Despite the attractiveness of the position and its appearance as having explanatory power, the idea that poor attachment experiences serve as a developmental pathway to juvenile sexual offending remains specious at this time. This is not to say that attachment difficulties do not play a role, whether major or minor, but merely that we must put such ideas into a context informed by a broad understanding of attachment, sexually abusive behavior, and evidence that links the two, rather than simply interesting and intuitively attractive theory, let alone our great need to understand and be able to categorize all human behavior.

Evidence of attachment deficits and a link to juvenile sexual offending is drawn largely from investigations into the attachment status of adult sexual offenders, but even in this domain such evidence is both limited and questionable. In many ways, a critical review of the research with adult sexual offenders suggests...