The Institute for Sexual Wellness

services

Training

Case Consultation and Staff Training

An integral component of effective sex offender treatment includes ongoing consultation and training of the individuals involved in the patient’s care. The clinicians at the Institute for Sexual Wellness provide consultation and “hands on” training to direct care staff and law enforcement. The training addresses how to execute the specific recommendations of an evaluation as well as general concepts in behavioral management of sex offenders.

Professional Workshops

Our seminars can be presented within your agency or organization in staff education programs, in-services and as a part of advanced trainings. The seminars are designed to educate treatment providers and correctional staff about sex offenders. The seminars are interactive, and use video and case vignettes to illustrate teaching points. Each lecture can accommodate up to thirty participants.

Supervision of Sex Offenders
Sex Offender Risk Assessment: Who Will Re-Offend?
Sex Offenders and the Law
What’s working? Evaluating Sex Offender Management Strategies
Safer Communities: A Model of Community Based Sex Offender Treatment
The Role of the Psychiatrist in Sex Offender Treatment
The Biology of Sex Crimes
Vicarious Traumatization: The Hazard of Working with Sex Offenders
Juvenile Sex Offenders: From Victim to Victimizer?
Female Sex Offenders: Unusual Suspects
Sexual Deviance in the Developmentally Delayed

Professional Training Opportunities

Paraphilic interests are fairly common in men and include a wide variety of behaviors typically seen in clinical populations seeking evaluation and treatment for paraphilias.^[1] Those who most frequently seek psychiatric treatment for sex offenses are those accused of or involved in child molestation, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fetishism, frottage, and public masturbation.

Many psychiatrists are unfamiliar with the fundamentals of the assessment and treatment of sex offenders. The advent of laws for the civil commitment of sex offenders has resulted in the need for psychiatrists trained in paraphilias. As a result of sex offender legislature, the treatment and release decisions regarding sex offenders has become a focus of attention for psychiatry. Forensic psychiatrists or psychologists must render an opinion as to whether the sex offender has a diagnosed mental disorder and, as such, represents a risk to public safety if released from custody into the community. In order to render opinions regarding sex offenders, forensic psychiatrists should be educated about the evidence based approach to the treatment and evaluation of this offender population.

The Institute for Sexual Wellness offers professional training clerkships for clinicians interested in learning more about the treatment and evaluation of sex offenders. Individuals interested in participating in the clerkship should submit a letter of interest to Dr. Sorrentino.

The training consists of a two-week curriculum which includes the following:

Week One:

Tutorial in Risk Assessment Instruments: Trainees will be educated about the various risk assessment instruments used in sex offender evaluations. More specifically, trainees will be educated about the research methodology and principles involved in the penile plethysmograph, ABEL screening test, and actuarials.

Conducting the Sex Offender Risk Assessment: Trainees will observe a sex offender evaluation. The trainee will be educated about the specific questions asked in a sex offender evaluation.

Report Writing: Trainees will be asked to prepare a sex offender report for the court. The report will not be submitted to the court, but will be used as a training exercise. Dr. Sorrentino will supervise the report.

Week Two:

Testifying in Court: Trainees will observe courtroom testimony in sex offender cases.

Clinical Treatment of Sex Offenders: Trainees will sit in on sex offender groups. In addition, trainees may observe individual therapy sessions including behavioral treatments such as aversive conditioning.

Trainees will participate in the weekly hormonal/antiandrogen clinic. This is a clinic devoted to the treatment of sex offenders with testosterone lowering agents.

[1] Crepault C, Coulture M: Men's erotic fantasies. Arch Sex Behav. 1980, 9:565-580.

[2] Lieb R, Quinsey V, Berliner L. Sexual Predators and Social Policy. Crime and Justice 1998; 43-114.

[3] Sreenivasan S, Weinberger LE, and Garrick T. Expert testimony in sexually violent predator commitments: conceptualizing legal standards of “mental disorder” and “likely to reoffend.” J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 2003; 31(4): 471-85.