Well, NanaNina, you can spare me your snipey little attitude to begin with. Some of us have fairly full on and involved family, professional and social lives, rather than sitting on the internet, as v simple searches evidence. ( I couldn?t help notice the wildly mistaken ?opinion? you were giving on another thread about the Equalities Act, which someone who knows a bit more corrected you over. I know about this stuff as I currently have a managerial responsibility for it, and there is no need to ?argue a case for mental illness/disability' ? it?s there writ large in legislation.) So I?d be kindly requesting you withdraw your low-quality sarcasm?
Specifically the bit I was wishing to,respectfully , urge a note of caution was your assertion that ? the sins of the fathers' visited on the sons" (don't know who said that) but what I am trying to say is almost always perpetrators were once victims.? ? from your 30 years experience.
You are referring back to work you contributed to, 20-22 years ago. This was a time when I was a facilitator on multi-agency groups for men who had sexually abused adult women and children. That was a fairly long stint, and then returned to a different group as ?lead? facilitator 2004 ? 2008. I also have two articles published in the past 10 years in our professional journal, under my own name, ( rather than as part of a collective back in what is now considered the Dark Ages of sex abuse enquiry.) I also currently supervise staff who supervise sex offenders of both genders.
No, I don?t know you at all, but that isn?t a pre-requisite for adding a word of caution to your quote above. The assessment skills and interventions have moved on massively in the last 20 years, and when me and old colleagues meet up we sometimes cringe at the sort of work we were doing in hindsight. It?s fine to invest in your colleagues experience, at the time, and application to task, but it doesn?t mean they were right. Just v well motivated.
Regarding abusers experience of their own abuse, of course there can be no exactness about quantifying this. But, four things: at the point of arrest and prep for court, defendants will search around for anything which would lead to a mitigation (use of technique) ? the authenticity of that mitigation comes under question when:
a. post sentence they acknowledge, sometimes covertly sometimes overtly, that it was made up with a purpose,
b. when they refer to the alleged abuser who may still be abusing but wish to do nothing about providing their details,
c. when working with abusers on their developmental ?life maps? ( which was the subject of my second article) their own abuse rarely gets a mention, even when this glaring omission is prompted. In a group of 10 men the average for unprompted ?disclosure? is between 2-3, and
d. they exhibit poor consistency in interview compared with people who have been abused.
Overall, I am referring to contemporary research and practice. You are referring to a time when, relatively speaking, we still thought the sun orbited the earth.
Well that went on longer than I thought it would!