Motivational Interviewing with a Sex Offender Who Believed He Was Innocent

Abstract

Motivational Interviewing (Miller, 1983; Miller and Rollnick, 1991) is an approach originally developed for problem drinkers but assumed to have wider applications. This paper describes one such application through the case of Mr D, an imprisoned sex offender who was identified under the procedures of the Prison Service Sex Offender Treatment Programme. Mr D was convicted of rape but did not believe that he had committed an offence, although he admitted having had sexual intercourse with the complainant. A full assessment of his offending suggested that he had made cognitive and behavioural errors prior to the act of intercourse and so motivational interviewing was employed to help him decide whether or not to participate in the treatment programme. As a result he decided that he would attend a treatment group. The case study concludes with a brief description of his progress whilst in the group and summarizes the results of the follow-up assessment. The application of motivational interviewing to this particular client group is discussed.