Trauma resolution treatment as an adjunt to stand treatment for sexual offenders

This study explored the use of adding trauma resolution therapy to standard cognitive-behavioral relapse prevention therapy for sex offenders. Ten adjudicated sex offenders with sexual abuse histories were treated with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing as an adjunct to standard outpatient sex offender treatment. Data points include self-report, other-report, assessment instruments, session transcripts, research journals, and physiological measures. Systematic treatment research and development methods (Bischoff, McKeel, Moon, & Sprenkle, 1996) resulted in a proposed treatment protocol. Emergent themes from a cross-case, grounded theory data analysis are presented. The data suggests the adjunct treatment provided some benefit both to participants and to the goals of standard sex offender-specific treatment. Implications for treatment providers, marriage and family therapy, and future research are discussed.