By Kasia Uzieblo,
Jeffrey Lauer, & Minne De Boeck (Dutch Chapter of ATSA, NL-ATSA)
Five years ago, two
colleagues, Wineke Smid, Jan-Willem van den Berg (Van der Hoeven
kliniek, Utrecht, the Netherlands) and Jules Mulder (De Waag & Stop
it Now! Netherlands) dreamed of founding a Dutch Chapter of ATSA (NL-ATSA). With
this chapter, they wanted to enhance Dutch and Flemish practitioners’ knowledge
on evidence-based and best practices in prevention, assessment, and treatment of
sexually deviant behavior. They also wanted to encourage and facilitate a
fruitful two-way interaction between North-American and Dutch speaking
researchers and practitioners. A mere five years later, NL-ATSA has become a
fully-fledged chapter of ATSA. Moreover, the chapter can be regarded as a
prominent player in both the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium), when it comes
to informing practitioners about the scientific understanding of sexual
violence and the treatment of people who have committed sexual offences. Proud
of its achievements, NL-ATSA doesn’t want its fifth birthday to pass quietly
and organizes two events to place this festive year into the spotlight.
A first event took place
on the 25th of June. This event was entirely devoted to a
special edition on sexually deviant behavior published by the Dutch
Journal of Sexology which was edited by former and current NL-ATSA board members,
Jan Willem van den Berg and Kasia Uzieblo. During each conference, session
experts elaborated on a topic depicted in the special edition by zooming in on best
(research) practices within this particular field.
The first presenter, Eveline
Schippers (De Waag, Utrecht, the Netherlands), described the results of her
innovative study on creating sexual deviance through incentive transfer in a
male community sample. Antisocial behavior and sexual deviant interests are
regarded as two important risk factors for sexually deviant behavior. However,
current knowledge on how these sexual deviant interests originate is very
limited. The Incentive Motivational Model (Smid & Wever, 2018) describes
sexual arousal as an emotion, that is triggered by a competent stimulus
signaling potential reward, and comparable to other emotions coupled with
strong bodily reactions. According to this model, sex can be used to regulate
emotional states, and emotions can be used to consciously or automatically
regulate sexual arousal. Excitation transfer implies that one emotion triggers
or reinforces another. But there might also be a sexual component to it. An
example of sexual excitation transfer is when athletes become sexually aroused
when they won a competition (i.e., when euphoria leads to sexual arousal). With
the current study, Schippers aimed to examine whether people become more sexually
aroused when experiencing a strong positive and/or negative emotion than when they
are in an emotionally neutral state. Her first results suggest that mainly
movie clips depicting aggressive content seem to elicit sexual excitation
transfer and that genital excitation transfer might not fully align with the
subjective (thus self-reported) experience of sexual arousal. This coupling
between emotion and sexual arousal could provide interesting new avenues for treatment
programs.
The importance of
prevention strategies was highlighted in the second plenary session by Minne
de Boeck (University Forensic Centre and Stop it Now! Flanders, Belgium)
and Jules Mulder (Stop it Now! Netherlands). Taking into regard the high
prevalence rates of child sexual abuse and the gravity of the impact of sexual
abuse on someone’s life, it is astonishing that only a few programs focus on
the prevention of sexual abuse on a primary -and even- secondary level. Notably,
most of these projects focus on (potential) victims and on the environment
(e.g., parents and school) of potential victims - and exceptionally- perpetrators,
but not so much on the (potential) perpetrator him-/herself. Also, most of
current prevention programs focusing on the (potential) perpetrator are
situated on the tertiary level and hence focus on the prevention of recidivism,
and not on preventing sexual abuse of ever happening in the general population
(i.e., on the primary level) or in specific risk groups (i.e., on the secondary
level). The presenters emphasize that if we want to be serious about preventing
sexual abuse, all stakeholders (e.g., schools, sports clubs, practitioners, and
policymakers) should start thinking in terms of prevention on the three levels
and should start developing initiatives accordingly. De Boeck and Mulder
presented three real-life cases (a case of child sexual abuse in a daycare
center, sexual abuse by Jehovah’s witnesses, and sexting). These illustrations
elicited inspiring discussions with the audience on the benefits and
limitations of preventive strategies.
In the third and final
plenary session Zohra Lkasbi and Daniël Neves Ramos (ZNA
University Psychiatric Center for Children and Youth, Antwerp, Belgium) discussed
the assessment in and treatment of minor perpetrators of sexually violent
behavior. It is astonishing to note that this topic receives so little
attention in literature and practice. Current theoretical knowledge on this
issue remains very limited. And in practice they are often confronted with
denial from different agencies: even for professionals, it seems to be difficult
to acknowledge the existence of such behavior in minors, with all that this
implies for the treatment of these minors. The presenters described the limited
empirical knowledge on prevalence rates, the risk and protective factors for
sexual violent behavior in minors, and interventions. The presenters
illustrated the problems they are encountering in practice by describing a clinical
case. With this case, they demonstrated that their patients are often minors who
exhibit a wide range of psychosocial problems and risk factors. It also became clear
that many of these patients have experienced traumatic events and that
treatment programs should sufficiently take these traumas into regard. Finally,
these clinicians often struggle with pharmaceutical interventions given that
little is known about the efficacy and side effects of these interventions.
In the afternoon, four
workshops took place. In a first workshop Jan Willem van den Berg and
Marc Lexmond (Van der Hoeven kliniek, Utrecht, the Netherlands) presented
“A Positive Life Plan”, which is a treatment plan developed by van den Berg and
colleagues. With this treatment, plan practitioners are offered a tool to
develop a treatment module that adheres to the principles of the Good Lives
Model (Ward & Stewart, 2003). In the second workshop, Els Van Daele
and Kris Vanhoeck (I.T.E.R., Brussels, Belgium) focused on the factors
that might facilitate the development of a therapeutic alliance with clients
who have committed sex offences. Through role-plays with the participants, they
developed suggestions on how to avoid pitfalls and create opportunities to
develop such an alliance with their client. The third workshop of Kasia
Uzieblo and Eelco van Doorn (Van der Hoeven kliniek, Utrecht, the
Netherlands) aimed to counter the most prominent myths about psychopathy and to
illustrate that positive treatment outcomes can be obtained in patients with
psychopathic traits. In the final workshop, Kim Ellen Biesmans, and Lieke
Nouwen (STEVIG, Forensic Care and Centre of Expertise, the Netherlands) introduced
a treatment program that they developed for individuals with intellectual
disabilities who committed a sexual offence. This treatment program uses the
Integrated Theory of Sexual Offending (ITSO; Ward & Beech, 2005) as a
reference point.
This successful,
sold-out event was again a reminder of what Wineke Smid, Jan Willem van den
Berg and Jules Mulder have accomplished: Five years after the launch of NL-ATSA,
the chapter plays a crucial role in building bridges between the production of
knowledge and its diffusion to Dutch and Flemish practice and broader, to
society. Hence, we are in great debt to the founders of NL-ATSA.
And for the curious
readers amongst you: Our second birthday event will be a four-day conference on
the assessment and treatment of sex offenders, which will take place from
February 4 until February 7, 2020, in Antwerp, Belgium. More information is
coming soon!
References
Smid, W. J., & Wever, E. C. (2018). Mixed emotions: an incentive motivational
model of sexual deviance. Sexual Abuse, doi: 1079063218775972.
Ward, T., & Beech, A. R. (2006). An integrated theory of sexual
offending. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 11(1), 44–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2005.05.002
Ward, T., & Stewart, C. A. (2003). The treatment of sex offenders:
Risk management and good lives. Professional Psychology: Research and
Practice, 34(4), 353–360. http://dx. doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.34.4.353.
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