Aspects of Ego Development in the Serious Juvenile Offender Diagnostic Considerations and Treatment Implications

• NCJ Number: 89025
• Journal: Corrective and Social Psychiatry and Journal of Behavior Technology Methods and Therapy Volume: 29 Issue: 2 Dated: (1983) Pages: 44-55
• Author(s): L S Taylor
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 12 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper delivered to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 4-6, 1982, Toronto, Canada.

Annotation

Each primary type of juvenile offender -- lifestyle offenders, emotionally disturbed offenders, and sadomasochistic offenders -- has a particular level of ego integration that requires specific treatment approaches, although all treatment should have certain basic elements.

Abstract

Each individual has a modal response to a given set of circumstances. The response results from the manner in which the ego has synthesized needs perceptions, thoughts, experiences, and relational events. The modal response is the work of an ego that must operate within the restrictions of a person's raw genetic materials and immediate environmental conditions but which also has autonomous features and purposeful aims. Modal behaviors can change, given new circumstances and opportunities to experience the external world and the internal self. The task for the helping professional is to determine how ego develops in the growing persons and then to identify what distortions in perception, upbringing, and learning have occurred in the life of an assaultive youth to cause him to adopt aggression as a modal response to his environment. The helping process aids in the restructuring of ego mechanisms so that a different adaptation can occur. There are three types of violent juvenile offenders: (1) the lifestyle violent juvenile, whose lifestyle is marked by chronic violent acts; (2) the emotionally disturbed violent juvenile, who is in chronic emotional conflict and is unable to develop resilient coping mechanisms, and (3) the sadomasochistic violent juvenile, who is drawn to and excited by violence. Since each of these types is characterized by a different level of ego integration, treatments must take these differences into account; however, all treatment should contain the elements of primary relationship, family restructuring, and exposure to the community. Secure facilities are required in the initial phases of treatment for the public's protection. Thirty-five footnotes are provided.