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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
In the past decade, as more states enacted commitment laws, there was a move to use cognitive-behavioral therapy -- sometimes in coordination with medication -- to treat the majority of violent sex offenders. It will take years to test the impact on recidivism of this particular approach, but early reports indicate a better outcome than previous therapies -- so far.
The cognitive-behavioral group therapy employed by Henger conforms to the guidelines recommended by the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). The ATSA, an Oregon-based international organization of approved professionals who work with offenders, has provided standards for professionals in the field of sex offender evaluation and treatment since 1984. According to ATSA executive director Connie Isaac, core elements of successful therapy for sexual abusers must include disclosure, victim empathy and relapse prevention. Henger incorporates these elements into his own approach, which he describes as "heavy in problem solving and role playing."
On the September night when Henger's high-risk offenders add up the number of their victims, one of the men brings out a yellow legal pad full of notes -- preparation for "disclosure." Nick, the son of a minister, tells the group a bit about himself and then describes -- minute by minute -- the details of his single crime. He says that his father beat and sexually humiliated him as a child, and he contemplated suicide; but, he tells the group, his father had drilled into him as a child that he would go to hell if he took his own life.
Instead, Nick nursed a fantasy about sexually degrading his stepmother and eventually showed up one night at the house of the mother of an acquaintance, a woman in her 60s who looked like his stepmother. When he rang the bell and she welcomed him in, he sexually assaulted her.
Henger later describes the disclosure process as "undercover" work. "I go in and understand these offenders' worlds. Then I can figure out a logic they'll buy into and reprogram them." He says that Nick's anger toward his father is so powerful that he has projected his rage onto his mother and stepmother instead. He categorizes Nick's crime as "a classic rape about anger."
As he does with each of his clients, Henger will use Nick's account to help him identify all the triggers that led up to the assault, and then find ways to avoid or interrupt them. He will then have Nick describe his crime again, from the perspective of the victim, to begin the process of victim empathy.
As it happens, victim empathy is the subject of Henger's meeting with the same men three weeks later. They bring in their homework assignments -- letters they have written to their victims. Each letter had to address a series of 13 questions, starting with "Why did you do those things to me?" Their answers had to explain why they committed their crimes and why the victim is no longer in danger. The men never send the letters, but the project gives Henger a chance to assess each participant's degree of victim empathy.
Henger asks one of the men to read the 13 questions to Matt. Matt, in his 40s, sexually assaulted 33 boys over a period of 22 years. His hands shake as he tries to give his answer to question No. 3, "Will you ever do those things to me again?" He stammers, "This is really hard for me."
Henger has some other men respond and returns to Matt for No. 9, "How did you feel when you were hurting me?" At first Matt replies, "I felt anger, fear, depressed and low self-esteem."
A couple of the men are clearly unconvinced and shoot back, "Come on ... "
"OK. I was pretty much excited," Matt divulges. "I felt the boys owed me for all the grooming and all the gifts I gave them." (Grooming refers to the process a sex offender uses to gain the trust of a vulnerable person, most often a child, and break down the victim's fears and defenses so he or she will accept the perpetrator's sexual advances.)
Another man nods and adds, "When I would give something before, I gave it with a sense of wanting something in return. Now when I do things for people, it's not for what I can get down the road."
Peter starts to cry and reveals, "My daughters were holding out their arms for love and attention and I treated them like shit. They would ask, 'Why Daddy?' and I'd say, 'Shut up. I'm not your fucking father.'"
Some of the men are confused. Roberto, who molested his daughter, asks, "Were they your real daughters?" Peter says they were and Bert shakes his head: "Double hurt -- to rape and disown."
At another point in the letters work, Peter says he committed his crimes because "I was getting back at the bitches who hurt me in the past." Henger immediately interrupts, "If you're using the word 'bitches,' it shows you haven't learned much."
