Thijs Kanters

Aggression Replacement Training for Violent Young Men in a Forensic Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic

The effects of Aggression Replacement Training (ART) were explored in a group of Dutch violent young men aged 16 to 21 years, who were obliged by the court to follow a treatment program in a forensic psychiatric outpatient clinic. To evaluate the training, patients completed a set of self-report questionnaires at three moments in time: at intake/before a waiting period, after the waiting period/before the training, and after the training. During the waiting period, the patients did not change on most measures, although they displayed a significant increase in anger. The patients who completed the therapy scored significantly lower on psychopathy than the patients who dropped out. The training produced significant decreases in physical aggression and social anxiety and showed trends toward a decline in self-reported hostility, general aggression, and anger. After the training, the patients scored comparably with a reference group on measures of hostility and aggressive behavior. Altogether, these results provide tentative support for the efficacy of the ART for violent young men referred to forensic psychiatric outpatient settings.

Implicit attitudes toward violence and their relation to psychopathy, aggression, and socially adaptive behaviors in forensic psychiatric inpatients

In order to investigate the relation between implicit attitudes toward violence and different aspects of violent and social behavior in Dutch forensic psychiatric inpatients, an implicit association test was related to measures of psychopathy, aggression, and socially adaptive behaviors. Results indicated that all patients had negative implicit attitudes toward violence. Although implicit attitudes toward violence were unrelated to several self-report measures of aggression, there was a significant positive relation between these attitudes and the antisocial facet of psychopathy. Furthermore, it was found that implicit attitudes toward violence were significantly negatively associated with coping behaviors and the level of moral awareness, indicating that patients with more negative implicit attitudes toward violence more often reported these behaviors, which can be assumed to inhibit aggression. As the present study was only correlational in nature, our findings need to be further explored in prospective research.

Psychomotor Therapy as an Additive Intervention for Violent Forensic Psychiatric Inpatients: A Pilot Study

ABSTRACT The first results of psychomotor therapy (PMT) as an additional component to Aggression Replacement Training (ART) were explored in a group of forensic psychiatric inpatients (N = 37). Patients were divided into two groups: ART+PMT (experimental group) and ART+Sports (control group). Primary outcome measures of aggression, anger, and social behavior, and secondary outcome measures of coping behavior and bodily awareness during anger were administered on three occasions: pretreatment, posttreatment (after 35 sessions), and follow-up (15 weeks after the final session). The combined group (experimental and control group) showed clinically significant improvements on observed social behavior, observed aggressive behavior, and self-reported anger, but there were no differences in treatment effects between the experimental group and the control group on these primary outcome measures. However, on secondary outcome measures of bodily awareness during anger and coping behavior, the experimental group displayed somewhat more improvement than the control group. Altogether, the results of this pilot study indicate that the addition of PMT to a treatment program for violent forensic inpatients may indeed result in improvements on specific treatment goals of PMT, whereas its effects on aggressive behavior needs further examination.

The psychometric properties of the Anger Bodily Sensations Questionnaire (ABSQ)

The Anger Bodily Sensations Questionnaire (ABSQ) is a newly developed self-report instrument for measuring bodily sensations related to anger in interpersonal situations. In this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the ABSQ in a sample of 70 offenders and a sample of 100 secondary vocational students. Results indicated that the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the instrument were good. An explorative factor analysis carried out on the ABSQ data of the combined sample yielded three factors. Support was found for the concurrent validity of the instrument. In both samples, the total score of the ABSQ showed positive correlations with measures of bodily awareness, social anxiety, anger, and aggression. Altogether, results suggest that the ABSQ appears to be a reliable and valid questionnaire. Further research is needed to examine the psychometric properties of the ABSQ in larger offender and non-clinical samples.

Are Child Abusers Sexually Attracted to Submissiveness? Assessment of Sex-Related Cognition With the Implicit Association Test

Child sexual abuse is associated with social anxiety, low self-esteem, and intimacy deficits. This, in combination with the core belief of a dangerous world, might suggest that child abusers are sexually attracted to submissiveness. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to examine this hypothesis. Results indicated that child abusers have a stronger sexual preference for submissiveness than rapists, although there were no differences between child abusers and non-sexual offenders. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that submissive–sexy associations have incremental value over child–sex associations in differentiating child abusers from other offenders. The predictive value of both implicit associations was explored by correlating IAT scores with measures for recidivism risk, aggression, and interpersonal anxiety. Child abusers with stronger child–sex associations reported higher levels of interpersonal anxiety and hostility. More research on implicit cognition in sex offenders is required for a better understanding of what these and similar implicit measures are exactly measuring and what role implicit cognition may play in sexual offending.

The Sexual Violence Risk-20: factor structure and psychometric properties

Abstract Although the Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20) is widely used, its psychometric properties have only been investigated in a limited number of studies. This study explored the factor structure of the SVR-20 and examined its psychometric properties. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the fit of the original three-domain model of the SVR-20. The CFA showed that the original structure was not satisfactory. Exploratory principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted in search of a more optimal factor structure. Psychometric properties (i.e., internal consistency, predictive value, and convergent validity) of both the original domains and alternative factors were investigated. The PCA and subsequent CFAs pointed in the direction of an alternative, more optimal three-factor solution. The three alternative factors were labeled as Antisociality, Sexual deviance, and Problematic thinking and produced better internal consistency coefficients than the original domains. However, the validity of the SVR-20 was modest and no evidence was found indicating that the alternative factors were better in this regard as compared to the original domains. Despite the overall superiority of actuarial measures in predicting recidivism, the structured professional judgment of the SVR-20 proved to be more predictive of sexual, violent, and general recidivism than its actuarial scoring method.

Aggression and Social Anxiety Are Associated with Sexual Offending Against Children

ABSTRACT The current study examined a number of risk factors that are thought to be related to sexual offending. More specifically, we investigated differences in self-reported aggression, anger, hostility, social anxiety, and social skills between child sexual abusers (n = 28), rapists (n = 36), and nonsexual violent offenders (n = 59) who were detained under hospital order. In addition, differences between inpatient (n = 28) and outpatient child sexual abusers (n = 61) on the pertinent constructs were evaluated. Consistent with our expectations, we found that child sexual abusers reported themselves as lower on the aggression-related measures and higher on social anxiety than nonsexual violent offenders. In contrast with our hypotheses, however, the results also indicated that the inpatient child sexual abusers reported lower levels of aggression, anger, hostility, and social anxiety than the outpatient child sexual abusers. The observed differences between child sexual abusers, rapists, and nonsexual violent offenders are generally consistent with theories about the etiology of sexual abuse. The differences between the inpatient and outpatient child sexual abusers were not in the expected direction, but may be due to a number of methodological limitations of this research.