Congruent Behaviour: Male Worker and Sex Offender
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026455059304000305 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Congruent
Behaviour:
Male Worker and Sex
Offender
The process by which a man may re-learn the ways in which he
relates to men and women can be difficult and painful, causing a
great deal of emotional stress. Ted Perry, of Nottinghamshire
Probation Service, until recently working with sex offenders at HMP
Whatton, a specialist unit for vulnerable prisoners, identifies how
men need to support each other in restructuring their own
relationships at the same time as they attempt to work uncollusively
with male perpetrators of sexual abuse.
―――――
T
f
a
man is to allow himself to abuse
have similarly absorbed them from
and
carry out an act which is totally in-
childhood.
defensible, he also has to acquire an ability
to rationalise, manipulate and distort thought
_
I- i
and perception. This distortion allows him
to sexualise children, to objectify women and
In the context of men working with sex
to see both women and children as being
offenders, it is quite possible that the male
there to meet his needs. However, the distor-
worker is no exception and the only dif-
tion is informed by beliefs and attitudes in-
ference between male worker and male
ternaliseci from childhood which tell him that
client, is the degree to which the beliefs and
men
are the more
powerful gender, that men
attitudes are held and the extent to which
have a right to that power and a duty to be
they are used to inform and justify behaviour.
in control. Women, as the more vulnerable
In the initial stages of practice, most male
gender, must take on a subservient role and,
workers will still see the offending as deviant
in doing so, must expect to meet the needs
behaviour and will fail to detect the con-
of men.
gruency in the beliefs and attitudes of the
But the sex offender does not hold those
client and themselves. The worker is still
beliefs because he is a sex offender; he holds
likely to be accepting the validity of the tradi-
them because he...
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