The Reduction of Deviant Arousal

Abstract

Rapists and child molesters come to the attention of therapists because of their aggressive acts against victims who did not or could not consent. It would appear obvious that a major focus of therapy should be to decrease sexually aggressive thoughts, urges, and behaviors. It is therefore quite surprising that when one investigates treatment programs for sexual aggressives, specific treatment to decrease this arousal is many times lacking. Instead, attention is focused on the offender's inability to interrelate with others. He is taught social skills, sex education, or any variety of new behaviors that do not directly relate to the reason for his incarceration, which is an aggressive sexual act. The reason for this lack of focus on the offender's aggressive behavior appears to be a lack of knowledge about various modalities that can reduce a child molester or rapist's urges to perpetrate this activity. Marshall and Barbaree briefly review four different treatment procedures whose goal is to reduce the offender's deviant urges and behaviors. They then discuss the use of a satiation procedure that they believe is effective because it reduces deviant behavior by destroying the erotic nature of deviant urges. This is accomplished by literally boring the offender with his own fantasies involving sexual aggression. The advantage of such a satiation treatment is that it reduces therapist's time, it is inexpensive, and, most important, it capitalizes on a naturally occurring phenomenon. Sexual arousal requires newness and variety to sustain itself. The opposite, boredom, destroys specific sexual arousal patterns. Finally, Marshall and Barbaree place the reduction of deviant arousal in its proper perspective, namely, one treatment component of many that are combined to form a total treatment package for the sexual aggressive.