Have you ever minimized your actions? Or even denied all or part of them? How do denial and minimization reflect on the accused?

Guest Blog by Patti Hoyt LPC CAADC CSAT

What are Denial and Minimization?

Denial is a small child saying “I didn’t do it,” when a parent walks into a messy room. Maybe, you say you completed a task, but in reality, you haven’t started it.

Minimization is a small child saying “It isn’t that bad,” when they get a poor grade or you saying “It isn’t that big of a deal,” when you forget to bring something you said you would.

Denial and minimization are both types of cognitive distortions. We all deny or minimize behaviors at some point in our lives.

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Denial and Minimization in Forensic Psychology

Yet, in the forensic world, denial and minimization are viewed as a negative behaviors and cause for concern.

They are often seen as:

• Barriers to accountability
• Barriers to treatment response
• A predictor for reoffense

Treatment often focuses on denial and minimization as a means to reduce risk of reoffending. However, the research on denial and minimization has yielded inconsistent results over the years.

Some studies have shown addressing denial for certain populations reduces risk of reoffending for a few, but not necessarily all.

Multiple researchers have been exploring the question “What is the function of denial?”

Why do people deny all or part of an event?

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According to the Research

Current research by Gabrielle B. Lucente and Kevin L. Nunes of Carleton University explores the function of denial.

They note denial is an adaptive response to a person being charged with a crime. They propose denial should be addressed as a barrier to treatment rather than a deficit to be addressed.

The researchers have indicated multiple possibilities for the use of these cognitive distortions by people who have been charged with a crime. Through their research, they have identified what they call the Adaptational Model.

Why do People Deny or Minimize?

People deny or minimize their actions for some of the following reasons:

• To continue offending behavior or continue to manipulate situations (psychopathy)
  • If I don’t tell, I can keep doing it, and no one will ever know.

• Protect self-esteem
  • If I don’t tell, people will continue to like me. I will still have friends and family.

• Avoid consequences of action
  • If I don’t tell, I will still have a job or people will continue to talk to me.

• Distance self from negative label like sexual offender
  • If I don’t tell, I won’t have the shame of being labeled negatively.

• Protect identity
  • This behavior is completely out of character and something I would never do it, thus I cannot tell.

• Avoid negative evaluations from others
  • If I don’t tell, I won’t be judged.

The more a person has at stake, such as losing friends, family, employment, sense of self, or increasing self-loathing, the more likely it is that they will minimize or deny their actions. The role of shame often plays a huge part in denial and minimization.

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Does the Research Recommend Denial and Minimization?

This research does not give permission to anyone to deny or minimize any behavior.

What it does is give insight to why these thinking patterns can occur. 

Changing how we look at denial and minimization allows treatment providers to explore barriers to a person’s responsiveness to treatment. 

If a treatment provider starts to ask about the “Why” behind denial or minimization, they can help the client begin to work through the underlying mechanisms for the distorted thinking.

Guest Blog by Patti Hoyt LPC CAADC CSAT

Are you looking for more reputable data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.

Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.

The post Are Denial and Minimization Always Bad? New Perspectives first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

If you have been following our blog series, you know that we are trying to use our years of experience to help you find the best counsel and treatment possible for the issues that brought you into the legal system.  This post may be the only controversial one of the series.

Should you take a polygraph test?

When most people think of a polygraph, they think about something they saw on TV or a lie detector.  The polygraph is not a lie detector but a device that measures physiological responses.  It is often not admissible in criminal court (though it is in some places and can be used for probation violations).  So why am I even talking about it?

Despite it’s issues, the polygraph is routinely used in the treatment of sexual offenders and is considered a standard of practice.  So even if you don’t do a polygraph pre-trial, you will while you are on probation.  While on probation it is used as a therapeutic “tool” to assess whether the person on probation is following rules and regulations of probation and/or keeping any secrets from treatment and probation.  It is a measure used to gather information.

Again, why on earth am I talking about you possibly taking a polygraph examination before you go to court?  Just like it is used as a tool after adjudication, we can use it as a tool prior to sentencing.  In our geographic area, the FBI likes to ask people they are investigating (often within hours of knocking on your door in the wee hours of the morning) to voluntarily consent to a polygraph test.  What are they looking for by doing this?  They are seeking any evidence that you may be a mixed offender.  A mixed offender is someone who is being investigated or arrested for a cybersex crime that ALSO has committed a hands-on sexual offense in their lifetime.  It will come as no surprise that many people to take this polygraph test right away don’t do very well.  There are many reasons for that, anxiety, fear and absolutely no preparation.

As someone being investigated for a sex crime, why might it be helpful to you to do a polygraph?  Honestly, for the same reasons that the FBI does them.  Research now tells us that the assumption that people who look at child pornography must also be contact offenders is false.  However, it is hard for a court or an evaluator to just take someone’s word for it.  Though it is not admissible in court, if you take and pass a sexual history polygraph and have no history of contact offending, this has a favorable effect on your risk of recidivism.

Guidelines for taking a polygraph before sentencing

1. Make sure your attorney is on board with this decision.  As with an evaluation, you can do this through your attorney so if you don’t have a favorable result from a polygraph it will be protected under attorney client privilege.
2. Find a polygrapher who is trained, accredited and familiar with working with sexual offenders and giving sexual history polygraphs. You want to take a Sexual History Polygraph.
3. Do your homework. This means that you and your therapist need to spend a great deal of time going through your sexual history with a fine-tooth comb.  This takes time.  People often have trouble on polygraph tests because they don’t really go through their history.  Work through your sexual history from the first time you kissed someone through the moment you are ready to take the polygraph.
4. BE HONEST. It is best to be honest and pass than to keep and hold your secrets and have a deception indicated.  Also remember, that though this may be a tool to help you in sentence mitigation, it is ultimately about you getting honest with yourself to help your treatment and growth into a better human!

Shame lives in secrecy.  If there are no more secrets you can start to work on shame reduction.  This means that the value of the polygraph can be something more than just another measure your attorney or psychosexual evaluator can use in sentence mitigation.

Dr. Jennifer Weeks is the owner of Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.  She specializes in the treatment of sexual offenders and cybersex offenders.  Through her program she provides psychosexual evaluations, treatment and expert witness testimony.  SATS also offers coaching services for those people who are being investigated but are not in Pennsylvania.

The post You’re Being Investigated for a Cybersex Crime: Do You Take a Polygraph? first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

So far in our series of articles we have talked about finding a good attorney and a good therapist.  The next step in the process is to talk to your attorney about a psychosexual evaluation.  In most states and in Federal cases, the prosecution will have you undergo an evaluation with a therapist who works either for or on behalf of the state, county or Federal government. It is normally always a good idea to have one done by a psychologist who is not working for the organization that is prosecuting you.

First, what is a psychosexual evaluation?  The evaluation is comprised of an interview with a psychologist, a lot of psychological testing and a review of all forensic documents related to your case.  What tests you take often depends on the clinician who is doing the evaluation.  These objective measures will test for factors that may have both influenced your committing the crime you are accused of and may influence you to commit the crime again.  For example, you will likely do some type of personality test to see if you have any mental health diagnoses that influenced your crime such as depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, etc.  You will also likely be asked to take some test that will assess your likelihood of having a substance abuse problem, as this is sometimes correlated with certain types of crimes.

How do you find the right person to conduct the psychosexual evaluation?  If you have an attorney, he or she may have a psychologist that they work with closely and will refer you to that person.  If you are looking for this person on your own, there are a few things you should be on the lookout for.  First, you need someone who has a Ph.D. and has been trained to give the types of tests that you need.  Not all therapists have the training to be qualified to administer certain psychological tests.  Second, the psychologist who performs your evaluation needs to be experienced in performing psychological evaluations for sex crimes.  Not all forensic psychologists work with sex crimes.  Some, for example, perform evaluations for competency to stand trial.  Third, your evaluator should be a member of ATSA and familiar with the latest research related to offenders of your type of crime.

A question I often am asked is “what happens if the evaluation says something bad?”  My first response to this question is that there is nothing about an evaluation that is “bad.”  An evaluation is a combination of facts, testing results and opinion based on all those elements.  However, if you are concerned about the outcome of the evaluation, there is a solution.  If the evaluator is retained by your attorney and paid for by your attorney, the report then falls under attorney-client privilege as client work product.  This way, if your attorney does not feel that the evaluation will help you, he or she will not use it during your sentencing.

In most cases, the psychosexual evaluation is used for sentence mitigation.  Your attorney may use a favorable evaluation in the plea negotiation process beforehand.  Your psychosexual evaluation will be part of the pre-sentence memorandum that your attorney files with the court prior to your sentencing.  This report will give the judge information as to some of the reasons why you committed your crime as well as provide the judge with some information about your risk of recidivism (commit another crime).  The judge will take all this information into account when they are determining your sentence.

If your attorney does not suggest an evaluation, ask them about it.  Whether or not you need an evaluation or if it may be helpful will depend on your case and your jurisdiction.  We provide these suggestions as they are helpful in our geographic area of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Jennifer Weeks is the owner of Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.  She specializes in the treatment of sexual offenders and cybersex offenders.  Through her program she provides psychosexual evaluations, treatment and expert witness testimony.  SATS also offers coaching services for those people who are being investigated but are not in Pennsylvania.

The post You’re Being Investigated for a Cybersex Crime: The Psychosexual Evaluation first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

In my first blog in this series, I wrote about the fact that getting a therapist is one of the first things you need to do when you are under investigation for a cybersex crime.  I briefly mentioned that you will need a specific type of therapist in that post and I am going to expand on what you need to look for in a therapist here.

Given how expensive this entire process is, one’s inclination is to just find a therapist who takes their insurance, can help with the anxiety and depression they are experiencing, though not necessarily specializing in treating people engaging in cybersex crimes.  I understand that thought process.  However, there are some things you need to know.

1. Many therapists will not work with sex offenders. You would think or hope that someone who works as a mental health counselor would be able to work with anyone without prejudice.  Unfortunately, that is not true.  Research studies have shown that a high percentage of therapists will not work with someone who is attracted to children or has engaged in sexual behavior with a child (even if it is online).  This means that if you go to see just any therapist, you do not know if you are meeting with someone who is personally comfortable working with you.  If they are not, ethically they are to refer you to someone else.  However, not all therapists will do this.   This means that you may get advice biased by their own opinions about sexual offenders and often this is not accurate or helpful.

2. Many therapists are not comfortable talking in depth about sex and sexuality. If you are going to really get to the root of the behavior that led to you engaging in a cybersex crime, you are going to be talking in depth about sexual behaviors.  This means that the therapist you choose to work with needs to be completely comfortable in their own sexuality and able to nonjudgmentally sit with the sexual behaviors of others.  Again, just as not all therapists can work with sex offenders, not all therapists are very comfortable talking about sex and sexuality.  That might sound odd, but it is true.

3. Most therapists are not trained in treating sexual behavior that crosses into offending. In the process of graduate training to become a therapist, unless a person knows they want to specialize in treating sexual behavior problems from the get go, they are likely to receive limited training in the topic.  Normally all counseling programs make students take one course on human sexuality.  That’s it. This means that a general therapist will not have the training or knowledge to help you with the specific issues that brought you to being investigated for a cybersex crime.

What do you need to look for in a therapist?

1. A therapist who has experience working with sexual behaviors. Most therapists will have listed somewhere on their website or Psychology Today profile what types of issues they work with.  If a therapist states that they work with sexual issues such as pornography addiction, sexual dysfunction, or other sexual health problems, they are going to be comfortable talking to you about details of sexual issues.

2. A therapist who has experience working with sexual offending behaviors such as child pornography, sexting minors, online solicitation, etc. This will require a phone call or an email to the therapist and direct questioning.  Have they worked with people in your exact situation before?  If they have not, you might want to continue searching for a therapist who as at least seen a few people who are in your situation.

3. A therapist who has specific training, certification or professional membership to organizations that work with sexual behavior problems. The best thing is to find a therapist who is a member of ATSA. This stands for the Association for Treatment of Sex Abusers.  This is an international organization that is entirely dedicated to research and treatment of people who engage in sexual offending behavior.  The website atsa.com has a referral page where you can find a therapist.  A second tier choice would be to find someone who is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist through IITAP (www.iitap.com) or trained through SASH (www.sash.net).  If you find a clinician who is experienced in treating your issue and they are not certified or a member of ATSA please make sure they stay informed of the latest treatment research and trends.

Again, if you are reading this you are in a very particular situation and need a very particular therapist to help you.  You need a therapist who is comfortable discussing sexuality in all forms, is willing to work with people who are attracted to children, has experience in treating people with sexual offending behavior and is up to date on the latest research in the field.

Dr. Jennifer Weeks is the owner of Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.  She specializes in the treatment of sexual offenders and cybersex offenders.  Through her program she provides psychosexual evaluations, treatment and expert witness testimony.  SATS also offers coaching services for those people who are being investigated but are not in Pennsylvania.

The post You’re Being Investigated for a Cybersex Crime: What to look for in a therapist first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.

First, here is my proviso and you will hear it a lot.  I am NOT AN ATTORNEY.  I am not writing this in any way as a form of legal advice.  That’s not my role.  My role is to help people advocate for themselves and find the criminal defense attorney that is the best fit for their needs.

If you have had a visit from some type of law enforcement and they told you that you are now under investigation, you need an attorney.  Most people do not have a criminal defense attorney on speed dial so you, or a family member or loved one, are likely frantically trying to figure out several things.  First, what attorney do you use and second, how the heck are you going to pay for it?

What do you need to look for in an attorney?

1. You need an attorney who has experience with sex crimes. Many criminal defense attorneys spend their entire careers mostly working with DUI type cases.  They don’t all work with sex crimes.  If you are searching attorney websites, they should state on the site that they have defended sex crimes.  If their website does not state this specifically, if you call, you need to ask whether or not they have experience with sex crimes.  And by experience I don’t mean they have tried one or two cases.  I mean that they have worked on many sex crime cases and know all about the laws and how to help mitigate your sentence.

2. You need an attorney who has experience with sex crimes in your jurisdiction. This means a few things.  First, they obviously need to have passed the bar and are approved to practice law in your state.  Second, they need to have experience in the court where your case will be seen.  What court your case will be in depends on who showed up at your door.  If the FBI or Homeland Security is investigating you, you need a defense attorney who has experience trying sex crimes in the federal court system.  The federal courts and county courts handle these cases differently.  There are nuances in the Federal System that someone who has not seen cases in that venue will not know.  If your case is a county case, you want an attorney who has worked on a number of cases in your county.  Part of this process is the relationship that your attorney has with the prosecutor.

3. You need an attorney with a strategy. When you are interviewing attorneys, you want to know what type of strategy they propose for your case.  At this point, they will not be able to create an actual solid plan as they do not know the details and will not know until the discovery is provided by the prosecution.  However, they should still have an idea of how to proceed and give you some things that you can do now to help with the case.

4. You need an attorney with good reviews. Just like a doctor or a restaurant, there are sites that will help you find a lawyer and also will give you information on the lawyers rating.  For example, you can go on avvo.com to find a criminal defense attorney and read client ratings.  The website www.superlawyer.com can help you find a criminal defense attorney with a good track record and good ratings.

In the legal process, the decision about what attorney to use is so important.  I cannot understate how critical it is to have an attorney with experience specific to cybersex crimes.  Do not choose rashly or lightly.  Take some time.  Talk to the attorney.  Do some research.  Any attorney is going to be expensive.  The price tag will likely be daunting.  If you have any ability to find the money for an attorney, it is my suggestion that you go for it.  If you cannot afford an attorney and have to use a public defender, your defense will not be nearly as customized, and you will have to do a lot of this work yourself.

The next article in our series will discuss the psychosexual evaluation.

Dr. Weeks is a forensic psychologist who specializes in the evaluation and treatment of cybersex offenders.  Her treatment program provides counseling both pre-trial and after adjudication and she provides expert witness testimony.

The post You’re Being Investigated for a Cybersex Crime: What to look for in an Attorney first appeared on Dr. Jen's Recovery Readings.