How Incest Offenders Overcome Internal Inhibitions Through the Use of Cognitions and Cognitive Distortions

• NCJ Number: 174144
• Journal: Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: February 1998 Pages: 25-39
• Author(s): C C Hartley
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 15 pages
• Grant Number(s): 90-CA-1517
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study explored the victimization process of incestuous child sexual abuse, focusing on the cognitions incest offenders use to overcome their initial inhibitions against offending and to maintain their offending behavior once begun.

Abstract

The research design was a qualitative, grounded theory approach that involved a series of three intensive, in-person interviews with eight white male incest offenders currently being treated for a sexual offense. All the offenders abused a biological daughter, stepdaughter, or adoptive daughter. Data analysis techniques based on the principles of grounded theory were used to create coding categories and to develop concepts that emerged from the data. Grounded theory is a method of generating hypotheses or theories directly from data, rather than from a priori assumptions or existing theoretical frameworks. The cognitions identified were grouped into four categories: cognitions related to sociocultural factors, cognitions used to overcome the fear of disclosure, cognitions used to diminish responsibility, and cognitions related to permission seeking. The study shows that offenders do not just use these categories of rationalizations to excuse their behavior after disclosure. Rather, offenders reported using these rationalizations as a way of overcoming their internal inhibitions against offending throughout the history of the sexual contact with their daughters. Ward, Hudson, and Marshall (1995) have proposed a theory on the role of cognitions in sexual offending that mirrors much of what was found in this study. Their theory suggests that offenders engage in a process of cognitive deconstruction related to offense events. Cognitive deconstruction is a process in which "people attempt to avoid the negative implications of self- awareness in order to escape from the effects of traumatic or particularly stressful experience." In a cognitively deconstructed state, self-awareness is suspended or stunted and the person is typically focused on sensations in the here and now. While in this state, a person is not engaged in appropriate self- evaluative processes. This suspension of self-awareness may serve to help people reduce inhibitions and be more likely to violate their usual moral and personal standards. This theory of cognitive deconstruction may explain the offenders' lack of understanding of the child's or other's reactions to the abuse and their lack of fear about disclosure. An understanding of incest offenders' use of cognitive distortions to overcome inhibitions has important treatment implications. A critical component for comprehensive treatment of sexual offenders includes modifying the distorted cognitions offenders use to justify their deviant behavior through the techniques of cognitive restructuring. 24 references