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Article Excerpt
This study investigated counselors' attitudes toward sex offenders and the relationship of these attitudes to counselors' experience, training, and personal characteristics. Participants were 437 counselors who were members of the Association for Mental Health Counselors or the International Association of Addictions and Offenders Counselors. Each participant completed the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders Scale (Hogue, 1993) and supplied personal background information. Results indicated that counselors tend to have positive attitudes toward sex offenders and that experience, preparation from training, and victim status are related to these positive attitudes. Results may be used to improve the quality of selection and training of counselors to provide services to sex offenders, improve the effectiveness of those services, and protect the public.
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Sexual assault is a serious problem in the United States. It has been reported that sexual victimization is widespread, with a lifetime prevalence rate of 25% for women and 15% for men (Barbaree, Marshall, & McCormick, 1998). Due to escalating incidences of sexual crimes, public awareness and concern about the problem of sexual violence have increased (Brown, 1999). The attitude of the general public toward sex offenders appears to be highly negative (Valliant, Furac, & Antonowicz, 1994).
The American criminal justice system has increasingly mandated that sex offenders be treated in outpatient settings rather than by incarceration alone (Barnard, Fuller, Robbins, & Shaw, 1989). Consequently, more and more sex offenders are receiving treatment in their own communities from counselors who work in community agencies and other outpatient facilities. This situation challenges community mental health counselors, who 10 years ago may never have encountered sex offenders, to examine their own feelings about sexual abuse and those who perpetrate it (Polson & McCullom, 1995). It is important for counselors to discover factors that influence their perception of sex offenders (Kaplan, 1984; Ray, McKinney, & Ford, 1987), because their perceptions may cause them to view sex offenders as criminals needing punishment instead of clients needing counseling. It is imperative that counselors, if they are to provide services effectively to sex offenders, explore their own biases about counseling this population.
Wodarski and Whitaker (1989) have argued that the behavior of the labeled sex offender is viewed from a completely different and more negative perspective than any other group of clients served in community mental health settings. This perceptual bias may contribute to the difficulty of treating sex offenders, who are identified with the nature of their crime on a negative, emotionally charged level. To compound the problem, sex offenders can be resistant to treatment (Pithers, 1997), and counseling sex offender clients can be highly stressful (Etgar, 1996). Counselors need specialized training and knowledge in order to provide services effectively to this population (O'Connell, Leberg, & Donaldson, 1990). These authors recommended that providers possess familiarity with sexual deviancy and victimization issues and knowledge of the criminal justice system. Essential skills and attributes also include confrontation skills; a concern for community safety; and the abilities to cope with stress, discuss sexual matters openly, maintain objectivity, and remain realistic about sex offenders and their potential for reoffense.
In addition to skills and knowledge, counselor attitudes have important implications for service delivery, including impact on quality of care, staff selection, choice of intervention, and quality of the counseling relationship. Rudisill (1997) and Scaletta (1995) have asserted that the Rogerian attributes of genuineness, accurate empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard are important attributes for offender counselors to possess, and that treatment of sex offenders will not be effective without these core conditions. It may be difficult for counselors to feel positive regard for sex offender clients, due to the harmful and socially unacceptable nature of their offenses. A counselor who disapproves of a client but fakes acceptance could be expected to have difficulty in being either genuine or accepting. Counselors will most likely disapprove of the offending behaviors, yet they must be able to express genuine regard for the client as a human being (Scaletta, 1995).
Despite the necessity for maintaining these facilitative conditions in the counseling relationship, little clinical literature exists that examines how counselors maintain counseling attitudes or monitor and control their own emotional reactions to sex offenders. The few extant studies suggest that attitudes toward sex offenders differ depending on the degree of experience and specialist training. Previous research has suggested that professionals' attitudes are more positive following training (Hogue, 1995; Lea, Auburn, & Kibblewhite, 1999) and contact with sex offenders (Hogue, 1993; Hogue, in press; Lea et al., 1999; Weekes, Pelletier, & Beaudette, 1995). In addition, the literature has suggested that certain personal characteristics of counselors such as gender (Farrenkopf, 1992; Harnett, 1997), being a parent (Farrenkopf, 1992; Lea et al., 1999; Poison & McCullom, 1995), and history of victimization (Carone & LaFleur, 2000) may be related to attitudes toward sex offenders.
In a study by Farrenkopf (1992), 24 mental health counselors--with between 10 and 30 years of experience counseling sex offenders--were surveyed following pilot interviews. Female counselors reported feelings of increased vulnerability, paranoia, and vigilance regarding their own and their children's safety. Males reported an increased collective guilt regarding male abusive behavior.
Polson and McCullom (1995) conducted a qualitative study with several counselors who specialize in the treatment of sex offenders. All the counselors interviewed worked with both sex offenders and victims of sexual abuse. Four general themes describing counselor attitudes and behavior emerged from the interviews: (a) developing a positive view of perpetrators, (b) managing dysfunctional client behaviors and beliefs, (c) controlling personal reactivity, and (d) limitations of counseling. In developing a positive view, counselors described constructing cognitive frames that view the sex offender as vulnerable, impaired...
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