

VICARIOUS SENSITIZATION
A conditioning method to reduce deviant arousal in adolescent sex offenders

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Developed for teenage boys, this behavioral technique has elements of cognitive
restructuring, fear induction, satiation, and aversive conditioning.
In Vicarious Sensitization (VS) the aversive stimuli are videotaped portrayals
of adolescent sex offenders who must contend with the negative social, emotional,
physical, and legal consequences of their crimes against younger children.
Clients are exposed to a tailor-made audiotaped crime scenario designed to evoke
arousal to children, followed immediately by presentation of an aversive video
vignette. The videotapes have little or no sexual content. They are designed to
elicit anxiety in the viewer. As with other conditioning procedures, many trials
are necessary for cues associated with illicit sexual activity to evoke anxiety
rather than deviant fantasies or actual abuse.
Deviant sexual arousal has been identified as a key characteristic of
teenage recidivists.(1). A recent Safer Society survey showed
that over 90 percent of adolescent offender programs endorse the reduction of
deviant sexual arousal as a treatment objective.(2) In spite of
this, fewer than half of the programs surveyed utilized direct methods to counter
deviant arousal, because they are considered either too intrusive or ineffective.
Vicarious Sensitization raises few of the political, ethical, and motivational
objections commonly associated with conditioning methods.
(1) Schram, D.D., Milloy, C.D., and Rowe, W.E. (1991) Juvenile Sex Offenders: A
Follow-Up Study of Reoffensive Behavior. Washington State Institute for Public
Policy.
(2) Nationwide Survey of Juvenile and Adult Sex Offender Treatment Programs and
Models. 1992. Brandon, VT: Safer Society Press.
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