Paraphilic Coercive Disorder

Abstract

The work group of the American Psychiatric Association to revise DSM-III in 1985 proposed a controversial new sexual disorder titled paraphilic rapism. Subsequently the criteria defining paraphilic rapism was narrowed and the category was renamed paraphilic coercive disorder to reduce some of the objections. Eventually the diagnosis was withdrawn front the DSM-III-R because of the ensuring controversy. The intent of the present study was to establish whether clinicians agree on the prototypical features of the disorder and to identify specific descriptors for use as diagnostic criteria. A collection of 87 possible traits from the literature on rapists was made and the traits were combined with evaluative (good or bad) concepts from Osgood's semantic differential studies. The traits were rated for their prototypicality in describing individuals with paraphilic coercive disorder by two groups: (1) the staff of a sex offender treatment program and (2) a national sample of clinicians working with sex offender...