Clinical dimensions of adult sexual abuse of children

Abstract

Abstract This article identifies some of the more commonly held traditional clinical concepts employed by community based mental health professionals in work with adults who sexually abuse children. The manuscript suggests why these concepts appear to be not helpful to therapists in community settings. These traditional concepts include the idea that all offenders may be thought of as either fixated or regressed, incest or pedophilic, or that there is a typical offender profile of adults who have sex with children. The article suggests that a more useful way to think about adults who sexually abuse children is to think of them in terms of a number of clinical dimensions, characteristics of the problem of adults' sexual use of children. These dimensions include denial, sexual arousal, sexual fantasies, cognitive distortions, social skills deficits, and other problems. The manuscript discusses the empirical support for each of these dimensions as an important aspect of adult sexual use of children.

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