Look in the mirror:
"When Does Psychotherapy Work, When Doesn't Psychotherapy Work
In this award winning study, researcher Marnie Rice (1997) reports on the outcome of an ambitious therapeutic community treatment program initiated at the maximum security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre in Ontario, Canada. Hailed by a blue-ribbon panel as "an exciting program [where] the impossible is apparently happening--psychopaths are being treated with success . . . Results of the program indicate a very low recidivism rate," the program was written about and copied extensively as the model for treatment of the very challenging population of violent offenders. However, when the program was subjected to rigorous empirical evaluation, the rhetoric fell far short of reality. To begin, the overall violent recidivism rate was 40%. Worse yet, when the researchers examined the effects of the treatment program on the target population--violent psychopaths (e.g., antisocial personality disorder)--they found that those who underwent the treatment had significantly worse outcomes than the untreated psychopaths. Indeed, the research shows that the treatment program effectively increased the self-esteem and empathic ability of violent psychopathic offenders thereby making it easier for them to manipulate, deceive, and consequently abuse others. In the words of the researchers, "there may be little wrong with psychopaths for therapy to fix" (p. 421). The researcher has used this information to develop an instrument that may be used to predict which offenders are most likely to re-offend in violent ways. In the meantime, they point out that programs which enhance efficacy, self-esteem, empathic ability/understanding are strongly contra-indicated in the treatment of this population.
Rice, M. (1997). Violent offender research and implications for the criminal justice system. American Psychologist, 52(4), 414-423."
From:
http://www.talkingcure.com/archive/Doesitarchive.htmNever let your sense of
morals get in the way of
doing what's right
--Isaac Asimov
