Adolescent sexual offenders: a self-psychological perspective

Following a request for assistance in formulating a treatment philosophy for adolescent sexual offenders, a qualitative study of seven adolescent offenders was designed with a view to elaborating pre-offense, and post-offense dynamics. The point of departure was the hypothesis that sexual offending had relation to object relations. It was further hypothesized that offenders' object relations and self-development had been disfigured in childhood and adolescent development. The developmental theories of Mahler, Stern, Winnicott, and Kohut were reviewed in order to shed light on the connection between disfigured self-development and sexual offending. Mahler's work suggested that anomalies during the separation-individuation process were heavily implicated. Winnicott's thinking on transitional functioning in potential space and his employment of the concepts of the true self and false self were especially useful. These bodies of work were assimilated to Kohut's theory of self development in which three nuclear sectors of the self, namely, the grandiose-exhibitionistic sector, the idealizing-voyeuristic sector, and the twinship-alterego sector, gradually coalesce and cohere through the moderating influence of parental empathy with the child's developmental tasks. Where such empathy is unforthcoming, or when the normal parental functions are obliterated by traumatic experiences of abuse, unmoderated needs for exhibitionism and voyeurism continue through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Victims of sexual offending were hypothesized to perform functions of restoration and preservation of a chronically weak and threatened self. The sample's interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed and aggregated. Analysis suggested that, indeed, offenses appeared to have been motivated to preserve a weakened sense of self and that the thoughts and perceptions surrounding the offenses resonated with expressions of problematic separation from parental objects. In addition, it was noted that in the post-offense period, offenders had become subject to close supervision, or proctoring, from both formal and informal systems. In close supervision, offenders tended to rapidly crystallize a foreclosed, negative, deviant sexual identity in defense of unmoderated narcissism. Other observations were that intrafamilial offending was consistent with enmeshment in the family, adjudication and apparent treatment readiness, while extrafamilial offending was consistent with exclusion from the family, no adjudication and resistance to treatment.