Early experiences affect sex offenders
Therapists treating sex offenders find many signs of failure to form healthy relationships which goes right back to their earliest experiences in infancy.
The theory has limited use as a warning sign of sexual offending because such “attachment difficulties” are almost as common in other offenders who commit crimes of a non-sexual nature and are also found in people who never commit a crime of any sort.
It can, however, give therapists a better understanding of their clients and even help the client form what may be the first trusting relationship of their life - with the therapist.
Dr Phil Rich, clinical director of the Stetson School, a residential treatment centre for teenage sex offenders in Massachusetts, told the NOTA (National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers) conference in Dublin that “attachment theory” could be a useful tool in helping offenders, particularly young abusers.
Studies among adult offenders had suggested that sexually abusive behaviour was more about a need for social connections than sexual deviance, and an inability to relate properly to society at large went back to infancy.
“Attachment is instinctive because we need it to survive. From the moment we come into the world... So if I’m hungry and I cry and my mom comes along and gives me food, I learn that the world is a good place and I’m doing something right.
“But if I call out and I don’t get a response or I get a neglectful, or worse, abusive response, then I learn that I’m not very effective.”
“That’s very important because by the time kids arrive at our doorstep, they have already formed patterns of attachment 10 or 15 years before.
“An image of the world forms in from about five months and the patterns of attachment are set by about 18 months to two years. It is fully baked by then. Between two and four it just deepens.
