Therapeutic Factors in Group Treatment Evaluated by Sex Offenders

The 12 factor, 60-item Yalom Card Sort was completed pre-dis-charge by 100 male sex offenders following 6 to 18 months of inpatient group psychotherapy. Sex offenders and Yalom's (1995) psychiatric outpatients ranked 10 of the 12 therapeutic factors in an equivalent manner. However, sex offenders ranked family reenactment 3 ranks higher and interpersonal learning (input) 4 ranks lower. Rankings were correlated with treatment length, offender age and IQ, and victim gender and age. As treatment length increased, the ranking of instillation of hope decreased; as offender age increased, existential factors were ranked lower but instillation of hope was ranked higher; and as 10 increased, instillation of hope ranked lower but self-understanding ranked higher. Victim age did not emerge as a discriminative variable but gender did in that offenders with male rather than female victims ranked the importance of instillation of hope higher. Implications for sex offender treatment are discussed.