SVR:20 Version 2 - changes and applications

Douglas P. Boer

The Sexual Violence Risk – 20 Version 2 was recently updated in 2017, twenty years after the original assessment guide was published. The manual and scoring worksheet are a marked improvement over its predecessor, the worksheet in particular being a significant contribution in and of itself. The brief workshop will focus on the primary changes to the manual (e.g., new / changed items) and the use of the worksheet.

Professor Boer began working at the University of Canberra in September of 2012 after 7 years at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) where he also taught in the Clinical Psychology Programme. Prior to 2006 he worked for the Correctional Service of Canada for about 15 years. He has about 110 publications including articles, book chapters, edited books and test manuals. He helped to co-author the “Sexual Violence Risk – 20 (SVR-20, 1997 and SVR-20 V2, 2017) and the “Assessment of Risk and Manageability for Individuals with Developmental and Intellectual Limitations who Offend Sexually (ARMIDILO-S)”, and the “G” version of the ARMIDILO. Most recently, he has been involved in designing a supervision triage tool for the Victoria Police (the SHARP) and other assessment research with Defense sector in Australia. He also serves on a number of editorial boards, including the “British Journal of Forensic Practice” and the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. Professor Boer is also a past President of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO).

The Big Picture: Sexual Offending Among Other Sexual Self-Regulation Problems

Wineke Smid

Sexual offending behavior is often defined as sexual- or sexually motivated behavior that is forbidden by law. As such, it construes a rather random subset of sexual behavior, varying over time and place. In this workshop we will be talking about sexual offending behavior within the wider frame of sexual behavior in general. First we will discuss terminology. What is legal, what is not? What is problematic, what is not? What is normal, what is not? And how do these qualifications relate to each other? We will try to find a way to discuss these issues without needless judgment, yet with sufficient clarity. Next, we will use those terms to explore the relationship between various forms of offending behavior, such as child pornography consumption, and their legal problematic counterparts, such as the overuse of internet pornography. Various examples from forensic psychiatric practice, non-forensic clinical practice, movies and literature will be used as examples. Active participation of attendees is encouraged.

Wineke Smid is head of the research department at Forensic Care Specialists in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She divides her time between conducting and supervising empirical research projects, carrying out individual (risk) assessments of residential high-risk sex offenders and providing feedback of state of the art knowledge to various stakeholders in Dutch society. She conducted a national study on Sex Offender Risk Assessment in the Netherlands and is currently involved in research projects focusing on the assessment and treatment of sexual self-regulation factors (sexual deviance, sexual preoccupation, sexual coping) as well as fundamental sexological research on the Incentive Motivational Model. She provides (risk assessment) training to police officers, prosecutors, judges, treatment providers and probation officers. She is a fellow of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and a member of ATSA’s research committee as well as a member of the editorial board of Sexual Abuse. She is the cofounder of NL-ATSA (www.nl-atsa.org).

(Full link to thesis: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3usqwge9ea9tuu6/Thesis%20Wineke%20Smid.pdf?dl=0 )

Sexual and Emotional Self-Regulation: A Two Way Street

Wineke Smid

Sexual offending behavior is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Most existing etiological models describe sexual offending behavior primarily as a variant of offending behavior. In this presentation, we will look at sexual offending behavior in the broader context of normal, and less normal, sexual behavior. For this purpose, we will use an Incentive Motivational Model (IMM; Smid & Wever, 2019) that describes sexual arousal as an emotion; an emotional reaction to a competent stimulus, comparable to other emotions associated with strong bodily reactions. We know from research and experience that various emotions can interact with each other. The interaction between sexual arousal and other emotions may serve as a means of emotional self-regulation and/or sexual self-regulation. For instance, sex can be used to counter strong negative emotional states such as frustration or anger (i.e. sexual coping). But also, more subtly, sexual arousal can be used to increase general arousal in ‘low’ emotional states such as depression or boredom. In an interactive presentation, we will try to untangle the web of sexual preoccupation, coping and deviance, that so often characterizes the lives of our patients. 

Wineke Smid is head of the research department at Forensic Care Specialists in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She divides her time between conducting and supervising empirical research projects, carrying out individual (risk) assessments of residential high-risk sex offenders and providing feedback of state of the art knowledge to various stakeholders in Dutch society. She conducted a national study on Sex Offender Risk Assessment in the Netherlands and is currently involved in research projects focusing on the assessment and treatment of sexual self-regulation factors (sexual deviance, sexual preoccupation, sexual coping) as well as fundamental sexological research on the Incentive Motivational Model. She provides (risk assessment) training to police officers, prosecutors, judges, treatment providers and probation officers. She is a fellow of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and a member of ATSA’s research committee as well as a member of the editorial board of Sexual Abuse. She is the cofounder of NL-ATSA (www.nl-atsa.org).

(Full link to thesis: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3usqwge9ea9tuu6/Thesis%20Wineke%20Smid.pdf?dl=0 )

Virtual reality applications for the treatment and risk assessment of child abusers: old wine in new skins?

Peter Fromberger

Despite the successful application of virtual reality (VR) in a wide variety of mental disorders and the obvious potentials that VR provides, the use of VR in the context of criminology and forensic psychology is sparse. For forensic mental health professionals, VR provides some advantages that outrun general advantages of VR, e.g., ecological

validity and controllability of social situations. Most important seems to be the unique possibility to expose offenders and to train coping skills in virtual situations, which are able to elicit disorder‐relevant behavior—without endangering others. VR has already been used for the assessment of deviant sexual interests (Fromberger et al., 2015; Renaud et al., 2012), for testing the ability to transfer learned coping skills communicated during treatment to behavior, and for risk assessment of child abusers (Fromberger et al., 2018). The keynote reviews and discusses these innovative research projects with regard to their impact on current clinical practice regarding risk assessment and treatment as well as other implementations of VR applications in forensic mental health.

Peter Fromberger, Ph.D. is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Human Medical Center Göttingen, Clinic-for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy – Forensic Psychiatry, Germany. Peter’s doctoral thesis examined the possibilities to detect deviant pedosexual interests based on eye-movements. Peter received the Eberhard-Schorsch-Award of the German Association for Sexual Research (DGfS) and the award for Empirical  Research in Forensic Psychiatry of the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN) for his thesis. His post-doc research comprises the usability of digital techniques (Virtual Reality, web-based interventions) in the context of sexual deviancy.