Relapse prevention, offense process models, and the treatment of sexual offenders.

Is the extraordinary popularity of relapse prevention with sex offender treatment providers justified? Introduced 20 years ago, relapse prevention dominates the field of sexual offending, despite its clear limitations. Two of its major legacies are scrutinized closely: the relapse model and the use of relapse prevention as a treatment framework. Despite its practical value, relapse prevention's widespread adoption has obscured its limitations as a model of the offense process and in treatment design. Recent research on sexual offense processes is reviewed, and the self-regulation model (Ward & Hudson, 2000) is examined for its ability to provide a more complete understanding of sex offenders' treatment needs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reported hostility as a function of offense characteristics and response style in a sexual offender population.

The Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI), the Hostility Toward Women Scale (HTWS), and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Social Desirability and Defensiveness scales were examined in a sample of 239 sexual offenders, 23 of whom had previously been studied. Sexual offenders against adolescents and adults had higher BDHI scores than sexual offenders against children. However, multiple regression equations revealed that the MMPI Defensiveness scale accounted for more of the shared variance in both types of self-reported hostility than did the maturity of the subjects' victims or the level of force used in the commission of the sexual offenses. Social desirability was significantly associated with the HTWS but not with the BDHI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial and sexual outcome in women with Turner syndrome

Results of an inquiry in adults patients (18-53 years of age) coming from three centers (1 in Rouen & 2 in Paris), 213 questionnaires were sent. 105 answers were received. Scholar achievement: only secondary cycle in 6%, Secondary cycle + professional course in 22% and tertiary cycle in 44%. No scholar ship in 2%, 26% were still ongoing studies. Professions: 18% are unemployed (24%), Secretary jobs: 10%, Health professions (altogether): 18%, Teachers: 8%, Clerks: 7%, Executive jobs: 8% and Miscellaneous jobs: 5%. 3% have an handicapped status. The small height was a career obstacle in 29%. Affective life. Age of first sexual intercourse was 19-22 years. 17 are or were married and 15% are living in couple. But 58% have not any sexual life whatsoever. These women are divided on the ways to cure the sterility. Few among the oldest have attempted adoption or medically assisted procreation, with each time low rate of success. 26% have psychological disturbances which were serious in 6% mainly due to depression.     

Husbands' and Wives' Marital Adjustment, Verbal Aggression, and Physical Aggression as Longitudinal Predictors of Physical Aggression in Early Marriage.

Marital adjustment, verbal aggression, and physical aggression have long been associated in the marital literature, but the nature of their associations remains unclear. In this study, the authors examined these 3 constructs as risk factors for physical aggression during the first 2 years of marriage in 634 couples recruited as they applied for marriage licenses. Couples completed assessments at the time of marriage and at their 1st and 2nd anniversaries. Results of path analyses suggest that prior verbal aggression and physical aggression by both partners are important longitudinal predictors of physical aggression but do not support the role of marital adjustment as a unique predictor of subsequent physical aggression. Contrary to prior research, results also failed to support physical aggression as a unique predictor of marital adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggression and violence in children in different contexts

Starting with the hypothesis that children's aggressive and potentially violent behavior is the climax of escalating conflicts that cannot be expressed or showed in any other way, we analyse, in the following article, the conditions from which these behavior pattern arise. We have focused on the following areas; the individual, the family, the school and society, and we have tried to show how the development of children's aggressive behavior is determined by the problem constellations in these different contexts. Insecure and disorganised early bonding experiences and/or dysfunctional family relationship patterns combined with parental upbringing methods that support or condone aggressive behavior, can lead to children having fewer resources or social skills available than their peers in kindergarten and school. This may result in conflict and lack of social integration in these institutions.     

Aggression and the psychic self

In this paper we explore the idea of aggression as a defence against threats to the psychological self. This aspect of the self allows reflection about people in psychological terms and develops, in the first three years of life, through appreciation of mental states in the other. When the object is unpredictable or hostile, recognition of this is painful to the child, and his reflective function will not be adequately established. The defences of aggression or avoidance will be invoked very frequently. In time, aggression may become an organising influence in the construction of the self; pathological destructiveness then takes the place of emotional relatedness and concern for the other. Psychoanalytic treatment no longer works primarily by addressing conflict. Instead, particularly through interpretations of transference and countertransference, the analyst recreates an intersubjective process which enhances the patient's reflective self, this time in the safety of a benign relationship.     

Aggression and social experience in domesticated rats.

Conducted an experiment with 48 male and 28 female Long-Evans rats. Small colonies were established, using adult Ss that had either received continuous social experience or had been isolated since weaning. Unfamiliar intruder rats-with or without postweaning social experience-were exposed individually to the colonies for a 21-hr period. Behavioral observations and an assessment of the intruder's physical condition indicated that serious fighting, physical injuries, and large weight losses occurred only when an isolation-reared intruder was placed into a colony of socially experienced Ss. Results demonstrate that aggression is a joint function of the rearing history of both the colony and the intruder and that social experience plays an important role in the behavioral development of this species. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive Functioning and Alcohol-Related Aggression.

The primary goal of this investigation was to determine whether executive functioning (EF) would moderate the alcohol-aggression relation. Participants were 310 (152 men and 158 women) healthy social drinkers between 21 and 35 years of age. EF as well as non-EF skills were measured with 13 validated neuropsychological tests. Following the consumption of either an alcoholic or a placebo beverage, participants were tested on a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (S. Taylor, 1967), in which mild electric shocks were received from, and administered to, a fictitious opponent. Aggressive behavior was operationalized as the shock intensities administered to the fictitious opponent. EF was negatively related to aggressive behavior for men, regardless of beverage group, even when controlling for non-EF skills. Furthermore, alcohol increased aggression only for men with lower EF scores. Finally, the mere belief that alcohol was consumed suppressed aggression for women but not for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films.

In this study, the authors investigated the hypothesis that women's sexual orientation and sexual responses in the laboratory correlate less highly than do men's because women respond primarily to the sexual activities performed by actors, whereas men respond primarily to the gender of the actors. The participants were 20 homosexual women, 27 heterosexual women, 17 homosexual men, and 27 heterosexual men. The videotaped stimuli included men and women engaging in same-sex intercourse, solitary masturbation, or nude exercise (no sexual activity); human male-female copulation; and animal (bonobo chimpanzee or Pan paniscus) copulation. Genital and subjective sexual arousal were continuously recorded. The genital responses of both sexes were weakest to nude exercise and strongest to intercourse. As predicted, however, actor gender was more important for men than for women, and the level of sexual activity was more important for women than for men. Consistent with this result, women responded genitally to bonobo copulation, whereas men did not. An unexpected result was that homosexual women responded more to nude female targets exercising and masturbating than to nude male targets, whereas heterosexual women responded about the same to both sexes at each activity level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Missed somatic diagnoses--inexcusable, missed psychogenic somatic disorders--a gentleman's offense

Overlooking somatic diagnoses is judged a serious failing, overlooking psychogenic somatization a minor mistake. This situation derives from the medical theory on which the physician bases his opinions, decisions and treatments. In this case, the mechanistic model deriving from the introduction of physics and chemistry into medicine in the 18th century. A 19 minute verbatim first interview illustrates how the biopsychosocial interview method serves to pinpoint psychogenic somatization in a woman who had been unsuccessfully examined and treated for four years, bringing the underlying blocked process of grief to light and making it the focus of therapy. Savings in time, cost and suffering are obvious.     

Cognitive-Neuropsychological Function in Chronic Physical Aggression and Hyperactivity.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 118(3) of Journal of Abnormal Psychology (see record 2009-12104-020). The use of a weighted procedure within SAS PROC GLM inflated F statistics and underestimated standard errors that affected only conclusions from secondary analyses that were drawn about the specificity of working memory effects to physical aggression and hyperactivity. The corrected conclusions are presented in the erratum. The last two sentences of the abstract also needed to be corrected in order to reflect the new conclusions. The corrected sentences appear in the erratum as well.] Histories of violence and of hyperactivity are both characterized by poor cognitive-neuropsychological function. However, researchers do not know whether these histories combine in additive or interactive ways. The authors tested 303 male young adults from a community sample whose trajectories of teacher-rated physical aggression and motoric hyperactivity from kindergarten to age 15 were well defined. No significant interaction was found. In a 1st model, both histories of problem behavior were independently associated with cognitive-neuropsychological function in most domains. In a 2nd model controlling for IQ, general memory, and test motivation, the 3 working-memory tests (relevant to executive function) remained associated with physical aggression, and 1 remained associated with hyperactivity. These results support an additive model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggression in childhood: Developmental perspectives.

Studied 102 preschool children and 1st and 2nd graders, using a combination of time and event sampling procedures to observe aggressive events. Results indicate the older Ss were less aggressive per unit time than the younger, with older Black Ss significantly more aggressive than older Whites. Results suggest that the developmental course of human aggression may be best understood by a differential functional analysis, and that the distinction between instrumental and hostile aggression is heuristically valuable for studying aggression in early childhood. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Childhood sexual abuse, adolescent sexual behaviors and sexual revictimization

OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to examine the extent to which exposure to childhood sexual abuse (CSA) was associated with increased rates of sexual risk taking behaviors and sexual revictimization during adolescence. METHOD: A birth cohort of 520 New Zealand born young women was studied at regular intervals from birth to the age of 18. At age 18 retrospective reports of CSA were obtained from sample members. Over the course of the 18 year study information was gathered on: (a) childhood, family, and related circumstances; and (b) the young women's history of sexual experiences from 14 to 18 years. RESULTS: Young women reporting CSA, and particularly severe CSA involving intercourse, had significantly higher rates of early onset consensual sexual activity, teenage pregnancy, multiple sexual partners, unprotected intercourse, sexually transmitted disease, and sexual assault after the age of 16. Logistic regression analyses suggested that the associations between CSA and sexual outcomes in adolescence arose by two routes. First, exposure to CSA was associated with a series of childhood and family factors including social disadvantage, family instability, impaired parent child relationships, and parental adjustment difficulties that were also associated with increased sexual vulnerability in adolescence. Second, there appeared to be a causal chain relationship between CSA and sexual experiences in which CSA was associated with early onset sexual activity which, in turn, led to heightened risks of other adverse outcomes in adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggest that those exposed to CSA have greater sexual vulnerability during adolescence. This appears to arise because: (a) the childhood and family factors that are associated with CSA are also associated with increased sexual risks during adolescence; and (b) exposure to CSA may encourage early onset sexual activity which places those exposed to CSA at greater sexual risk over the period of adolescence.     

Aggression in thought and action of emotionally disturbed boys.

Studied relations between signs of aggression on the Rorschach and the TAT and ratings of behavioral aggression in 63 7-12 yr. old institutionalized boys. The majority of individual Rorschach signs did not differentiate between high and low aggressive groups but scores based on a cluster of 7 signs correlated significantly with behavior ratings. Of 4 scoring systems applied to TAT stories, 2 were completely ineffective in predicting behavioral aggression, and 2 led to significant findings, but the magnitude of these associations was not particularly impressive. Psychologists' clinical evaluations of aggression, based on comprehensive psychological assessment of individual cases, were highly associated with the overt behavior ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reported sexual function and sexual arousability in women with epilepsy

INTRODUCTION: There is a strong association of cardiac rhabdomyomas with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. This report describes the results of investigations in two patients with accessory pathway-mediated AV reciprocating tachycardia coexisting with intracardiac tumors. METHODS AND RESULTS: Two patients with intracardiac tumors had mapping of the accessory pathway. Echocardiograms obtained in the electrophysiology laboratory while the ablation catheter was at the site of successful radiofrequency ablation demonstrated a close correspondence between the site of intracardiac tumor and the location of the accessory pathway. CONCLUSIONS: These results lend support to the hypothesis that accessory pathways in patients with intracardiac tumors, such as rhabdomyomas, are not typical Kent bundles, but instead are either part of the intracardiac tumor or are closely related to the tumor. Ablation is possible in at least some patients with accessory pathways associated with intracardiac tumors.     

Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Inhibits Maternal Aggression in Mice.

Lactating females that fiercely protect offspring exhibit decreased fear and anxiety. The authors tested whether decreased corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), an activator of fear and anxiety, plays a functional role in maternal aggression. Intracerebroventricular (icv) injections of CRF (1.0 and 0.2 μg, but not 0.02 μg) significantly inhibited maternal aggression but not other maternal behaviors. The CRF antagonist D-Phe-CRF12-41 had no effect. Maternal aggression and icv CRF (0.2 μg) induced Fos in 11 of the same regions, including the lateral and medial septum, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, the medial and central amygdala, the periaqueductal gray, the dorsal raphe, and the locus coeruleus. These findings suggest that decreased CRF is necessary for maternal aggression and may act by altering brain activity in response to an intruder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggression in children treated with clobazam for epilepsy

Seven of 63 children (11%) treated with clobazam (CLB) for refractory epilepsy developed a severe behavior disorder. This disorder was characterized by aggressive agitation, self injurious behavior, insomnia, and incessant motor activity occurring between 10 and 55 days after initiation of drug therapy. The affected children were relatively young (mean age 6.4 years) and developmentally disabled (four were autistic and two had isolated mental retardation). The disorder occurred with a short latency after initiation of therapy and at a relatively low dosage of CLB. Serum levels of other coadministered antiepileptic drugs were unchanged by the administration of CLB. One child was taking CLB monotherapy. This behavioral deterioration required the discontinuation of CLB, after which patients returned to their previous behavior within 3 weeks. After > 3 years of follow-up all children continue to require multiple antiepileptic drugs but have not had a recurrence of this aggressive agitation. The mechanism of the behavioral change is unclear.     

Aggression: its relation to desire and self-interest

Aggression continues to be a problematic, ill-defined concept for most contemporary analysts. Questions about the nature and origin of aggression remain unanswered. On the one hand, aggression is conceived of as an instinctual drive; on the other, it is thought to originate as an instrument of reaction to external sources of frustration and environmental failures to meet developmental needs. Aggression has also been dichotomized as either the benign activity of assertiveness, or the darker destructive force of hostility, believed by many to arise from separate motivational systems. There is a problem with the view of aggression as largely an ad hoc reaction to deprivation or other environmental shortcomings leading to disappointment and frustration. This view understates the importance of the original expansive demands for pleasurable satisfaction made by the individual upon the environment. Desire itself seems to be responsible for an inward vulnerability to external sources of disappointment and frustration, so that what is not desired cannot be effectively frustrated. Though the prototypical object of aggression is taken to be an external source of frustration, danger, and narcissistic injury, the mobilization of aggression more accurately reflects a susceptibility to the disturbing pressure of psychic stimuli that are the inner desire for satisfaction. Aggression contributes its force to various constructive or destructive purposes, from love to mastery to vengeance. Its most immediate aims, primarily narcissistic, are not concerned with the needs of others. Aggression also makes important contributions to maintaining psychic equilibrium, to the psychic organization's stake in instinctual gratification, to ego function, and to superego operation.