COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS IN SEX OFFENDERS - AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Clinicians and researchers have noted that maladaptive beliefs and dis torted thinking play an important role in facilitating or justifying s exual offenses. There have been a number of attempts to describe the n ature of these beliefs and to develop ways of measuring them, but in t he absence of any integrating theory. We suggest that an understanding of the cognitive processes underlying the initiation, maintenance, an d justification of sexual offending is a vital prerequisite to the dev elopment of successful treatment programs. In this paps we use a socia l cognition framework to review the literature on the role of cognitio n in sexual offending: Pertinent research in the sexual offending doma in, specifically cognitive products, information processing; cognitive change, and the impact of affective and motivational factors on cogni tive processes, is described and related to the social cognitive appro ach. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discus sed in light of the major issues and problems highlighted in our revie w. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.