Cognitive Distortions and Affective Deficits in Sex Offenders: A Cognitive Deconstructionist Interpretation1

Abstract

Sexually aggressive behavior is often facilitated and justified by distorted thinking and affective deficits. However, there is no clear conceptual model that accounts for the mechanisms which generate these phenomena and informs treatment goals. Sex offenders frequently demonstrate a number of underexplained features such as denial or minimization of offending, victim blaming, passivity, covert planning, dependence on immediate consequences, empathy and other emotional regulation deficits, intimacy and other social competency deficits, and, finally, alcohol and other drug problems. These features are usually seen as offense precursors. We argue that Baumeister's construct of cognitive deconstruction, the process by which people attempt to reduce the negative implications of self-awareness, provides both a middle-level theoretical explanatory framework that integrates these puzzles in a parsimonious way and a mechanism that suggests that these features may be consequences of, as well as precursors to, an offense. Suggestions for research and clinical practice are offered.