Acceptance-based psychotherapy in the treatment of an adjudicated exhibitionist: A case example

This paper describes the treatment of a court-referred exhibitionist using principles of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy and Acceptance and Commitme nt Therapy. The patient's urges to expose, acts of exposure, and drug use w ere assessed during 12 months of treatment and at a 6-month follow-up. Resu lts indicated that the patient's urges to expose and frequency of public ma sturbation at treatment termination and at the follow-up assessment were si gnificantly reduced from baseline. Further, treatment facilitated social sk ills development and reduced drug use and symptoms of depression and anxiet y. These results suggest that nonaversive treat ment methods can be success fully applied to treat exhibitionists. The effectiveness of applying a simi lar treatment program for other paraphilias should be examined.