Abstract
Sixty-nine teenage child molesters received a 3-month regimen of vicarious sensitization (VS) within the context of a randomized wait-list control group design. An adjunct to specialized cognitive therapy, VS is a form of aversive conditioning the aim of which is to decrease sexual arousal to prepubescent children. Perpetrators were alternately exposed to an audiotaped crime scenario designed to evoke deviant arousal followed immediately by an aversive video vignette. The aversive stimuli portray adolescent sex offenders contending with negative social, emotional, physical, and legal consequences of their sex crimes. Subjects received approximately 300 VS trials over 25 sessions. Results based on both phallometric data and self-report measures showed significant decreases in deviant arousal for youths who received VS. Wait-listed youths did not improve, despite continuing in weekly cognitive therapy. When VS was later administered to wait-listed youths, they too showed a significant treatment effect. Three-month follow-up data indicated that treatment gains were maintained.
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