NCJ Number
210587
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 10 Issue: 5 Dated: July-August 2005 Pages: 569-578
Date Published
July 2005
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study reviewed professional journals to examine the types of paradigms of sex offenders with child victims used between 1993 and 2002, to identify paradigm change in the treatment models of such sex offenders based on the work of Thomas Kuhn, and to analyze the theories and treatments of such sex offenders.
Abstract
Seven professional journals were selected for analysis based on their being primary sources of communication between researchers and therapists from various fields. The seven journals were divided into sex-research and therapy journals and abuse-and-neglect journals based on the content analysis. A total of 165 articles focused on sex offenders who victimized children. Although the authors of this article anticipated that medical and biopsychosocial paradigms would predominate, the analysis found that these models were secondary, with the cognitive-behavioral model being the dominant paradigm. Alternative paradigms were found in the therapy literature and have been used with some success, which means that there are major multiple and minor alternative multiple paradigms operating in this applied science. Contrary to Kuhn's (1970) view that a scientist cannot practice from two competing paradigms at the same time, some authors have integrated two competing paradigms, such as the biological and psychological paradigms, in therapeutic models. Although the psychological paradigm was the dominant paradigm in this study, the sex-research and therapy journals had a greater proportion of medically based and combined models than the abuse-and-neglect journals. 2 tables and 52 references