When someone is convicted of internet or contact sexual offences against children, there is usually a significant negative effect on the life of their partner and family. Many loved ones of sex offenders need therapeutic help to come to terms with what has happened, to make informed choices going forward and to better protect any children in their care.
Drawing on many years of working therapeutically in the field of sexual offending and following on from his first book, Counselling Male Sexual Offenders: A Strengths-Focused Approach (2017), in this book Dr Andrew Smith aims to assist counsellors and other practitioners to work with partners and relatives of sex offenders. By means of in-depth fictional case studies, ways of working in a strengths-focused, eclectic way with this client group are presented. Counsellors who choose to work in this emotionally fraught field often experience conflicted feelings, which are explored through fictionalized supervision sessions.
The case studies mostly involve the familiar talking method of counselling but because some partners and relatives of sexual offenders have ongoing responsibility for children, a structured programme of therapeutic safeguarding work is also provided, along with suggestions for drawing up safety plans. Often more than one generation of a family is impacted by sexual offending so, in the latter part of the book, therapeutic work with families is presented.
Table des matières
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments v
Introduction vii
PART 1
Counselling partners where there are no child protection safeguarding issues
1. Margaret 3
2. Anthony 33
3. Anna 53
4. Anna and Greg 75
PART 2
Counselling partners where there are child protection safeguarding issues
5. Emily 101
6. Sian 127
7. Sian (continued) 157
PART 3
Counselling partners and other family members in a systemic way to consolidate and enhance family safety
8. Yasmin, Zara and Grandparents 213
9. The Roberts family 253
Conclusion 287
Appendix: Example Safety Plan 291
Index 295
A propos de l’auteur
Dr Andrew Smith is a therapist, trainer and expert witness, working in private practice. He has worked in the field of sexual offending for many years, for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (UK) and for Stop SO (UK), an organisation which provides therapy for sexual offenders and their relatives.