NCJ Number
202015
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 8 Issue: 5 Dated: September-October 2003 Pages: 487-511
Editor(s)
Vincent B. Van Hasselt,
Michel Hersen
Date Published
September 2003
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on the role of disorganized and delayed attachment processes to investigate adult and adolescent sexual offending as factors in the etiology of some sexual offense behavior.
Abstract
The article focuses on the unspecified difficult relational issues from which the sexual offender seeks to escape in an effort to fill in the early developmental states of the Marshall and Marshall Model (2000) with available empirical data and theory. Marshall and Marshall proposed a comprehensive etiological model of sexual offending which seeks to include both biological and social components, including attachment processes. In this article, three core areas are addressed: (1) how disorganized attachment creates a highly aversive intrapersonal experience; (2) how the quality of life of sexual offenders and individuals with attachment disruptions are similar; and (3) how sexual behavior comes to be an important self-regulatory strategy for some individuals. It is hypothesized that individuals with disorganized attachment experiences do not adequately develop and/or fail to adequately internalize self-regulatory skills, and may be more likely to rely on externally based means of self-regulation. Sexual offending is seen as one of many possible strategies of externally based intra- and interpersonal control that emerge mainly in adolescence in response to several pressures. References