RESPONSIBLE LIVING 

                               (Based on material contained in the original Moreton Correctional Centre Sex Offender Program)

 

Developing internal deterrents/interventions will help you increase your chances of successfully living in the community. They are an integral part of becoming a responsible person because they assist in developing CONSCIENCE and EMPATHY, two vital aspects of INTEGRITY and SELF WORTH.

Words like CONSCIENCE, EMPATHY, INTEGRITY and SELF WORTH sound very abstract and difficult to achieve. It's easy to tell yourself, "That's not really me. That's more for other people to do." Or you might have mistakenly convinced yourself that you already have these characteristics.

It's important to understand what the differences are between the characteristics you already have and the ones you need to have in order to stop violating the rights of others.

Webster's dictionary defines conscience as: "The sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions or character, together with a feeling of obligation to do right, or to be good." What do you think this means? Think about it in terms of yourself and the things you have done to others and to yourself.

Basically, having a conscience means having your controls over yourself in place. It means that when a thought comes into your head about taking advantage of others, certain alarms go off in your thinking that tell you it's dangerous for you to be thinking this way because it's wrong for you.

Notice the last phrase of Webster's definition in which it states that this is combined "together with a feeling of obligation to do right, or to be good."

That's the heart of it really. You can easily recognise if something is wrong - that doesn't necessarily keep you from doing it. It is the feeling of obligation to heed the alarms going off, to PAY ATTENTION to do what is right. When the definition talks about what is "right", it is not referring to the power struggle of Being Right. It is talking about Doing Right. Do you understand the difference?

Now we'll take a look at what EMPATHY is and how it connects to conscience. The dictionary defines empathy as:

"The capacity for participation in another's feelings or ideas."

It basically means being able to see the other person's point of view or experience a situation - how they feel about what is happening. It's being able to understand how they are affected by what is going on.

Think about your victims. How much did you really understand what they were going through? Did it even matter at the time? If you were aware of their feelings, think about the ways you used to convince yourself that those feelings they were having didn't matter.

Think about how you wanted to perhaps believe that they were enjoying being your victim, or how you minimised how they were feeling so you could do what you wanted.

What about the power involved? The feelings of power and/or anger that you were experiencing became the most important feelings in the situation and the other person's feelings were secondary, if they were considered at all.

Their fear, hurt, etc. became the fuel of your own image of yourself as powerful. That robbed you of your willingness to see the situation for what it was.

A person who is empathic will not deliberately hurt another person. Think about how that connects to having a conscience. If you are able to understand and feel what others experience, and you know they will be hurt by your choices, you are then in a position to make a responsible choice about your own thinking, feelings, and behaviour. You can choose to do what is right/responsible and feel good about it. 

That brings us to the definition of INTEGRITY. The dictionary defines integrity as:

"An unimpaired condition: soundness" and "The quality or state of being complete or undivided: completeness."

Think about how this definition applies to what you are working to accomplish when you are setting goals towards responsible thinking, feeling, and behaviour.

Your thinking has been impaired and unsound, divided by conflicts and emotions that seem too big to handle. Many times in your lifetime you have felt like a nothing and others have been hurt when you want to feel powerful.

The goal is to be able to feel good about being a responsible person who is not habitually violating the rights of others.

Having integrity has a lot to do with making the responsible decision; even when no one is looking. It means being able to have personal power that comes from inside you. If your conscience is working, and you have the willingness to be empathic, then you have a good chance of gaining integrity.

Integrity is something you learn to have; it is not something you are born with or not born with. It can't be given to you by someone else. No one can force you to have it.

 

                                                                                              GENERAL INTERVENTIONS

              (L. Bays & R. Freeman-Longo)

1. Getting Honest                   

The most important way you can intervene in your deviant cycle is being honest. Being honest with yourself, your friends, your family, and your potential victims is the quickest way to break a cycle.

In the Build Up phase dishonesty about your fantasies, plans, and reasons for anger and depression keep your cycle going. Telling one person what you are thinking of doing sexually will interrupt your plans. The Acting Out phase is based on dishonesty and manipulation. When you are honest with your potential victim and with yourself about the consequences, you can stop acting out.

The Justification phase is devoted to hiding and minimising the truth; it is totally disrupted when you are honest. Being honest with yourself and everyone you meet is the first condition to healing. In the Pretend Normal phase you are not honestly looking at your life and problems. You are pretending that what you have done is not affecting you now.

2. Fantasy Logs

A fantasy can be a daydream, a momentary flash, or any other kind of imaginative thought that involves your deviancy. Your fantasy can begin when you notice a woman's figure, see a child, catch sight of an advertisement using women or children in sexually suggestive poses, or think, "Wouldn't it be nice if..."

One fantasy leads to another and another and another. Carrying a notebook in your pocket and logging your fantasies helps you become aware of how often you are influenced by your fantasies.

In the notebook you would write down where and when you fantasise, your emotional state, your reaction to the fantasy (including whether or not you masturbated), and how you intervened to stop your fantasy. The log becomes a written record that not only increases your awareness of when fantasies begin, but also reminds you of the interventions that worked and lets you learn from your successes.

3. Anger Management

In general, anger fuels the deviant cycle. Stopping the habit of anger and identifying underlying feelings is an effective way to break a cycle. Breaking the habit of anger has two main parts. The first part involves stopping the immediate experience of anger. The second part concerns changing your sensitivity to the triggers you use to get angry.

You can interrupt the immediate habit of anger by noticing and writing down the "getting angry" signs in your body, in your mind, and in your emotions. Once you are aware of the signs of getting angry, notice and write down where and at what you get angry. After you have become aware of where and when you usually get angry, you can plan ways of stopping your angry reaction, like using a time-out, a specific series of behaviours that interrupt your angry reactions. A time-out is a short cooling-off period that allows you to work off some of your angry energy in non-destructive ways so you can think about why you feel angry and talk about it later.

Long-term anger management means identifying and expressing the feelings that underlie your anger, learning the habit of intervention, and stopping your angry thoughts.

Note: You can find books/videos on Anger Management at your local Library.

4. Social and Communication Skills Training

Most sex offenders have difficulty with personal communication. They do not know how to talk about their intimate feelings and have trouble sharing what is really on their minds. Communication training teaches you how to listen, how to give feedback, how to take criticism, and how to share personal feelings. Social skills training involves learning about socially appropriate behaviours and limits; for example, learning what is appropriate dating behaviour for healthy people or how to talk with women socially.

5. Autobiography

Writing your autobiography teaches you about your history, how you got to where you are now, and the consequences of your deviancy. Writing down in detail what you remember from your earliest days to the present gives you a sense of how your life is connected. The process of writing it down and being able to look it over several times often helps motivate offenders to make new choices from now on.

6. Countering Thinking Defects

Changing the thinking defects you use in your deviant cycle involves four steps; identifying the thinking defects you use; writing out what's wrong with each thinking defect and what the truth is; noticing and countering your thinking defects when you start "hearing" them in your mind; and practicing this technique over and over until the new thoughts become your normal ones.

7. Assertiveness Training

Acquiring the mutual skills of personal power and respect for others involves learning the difference between being passive, being assertive, and being aggressive.  

Assertiveness training teaches you how to speak your mind appropriately, express your needs, and get your needs met without stepping on or hurting others. Many child molesters, exhibitionists, and voyeurs need assertiveness training. You can learn how to observe your own behaviour and practice being assertive rather than passive or aggressive until you gradually drop your passive/aggressive stance.

Note: You can find books/videos on Assertiveness Training at your local Library.

8. Victim Empathy Training

All sex offenders need to understand the short and long term effects of their sexual crimes on victims. This understanding motivates many offenders to stop victimising others. Working on any sexual trauma you may have experienced as a child by using movies, tapes, stories, books, and talking with victims teaches you about the devastating effects of sex abuse and of your behaviour.

Maintaining Your Non-Deviant Life

When you have begun to change and are living in the community, you will need help, education, and support in many areas of your life to maintain and continue your recovery. For example, sex offender treatment programs help you replace your deviant sexuality with a positive sexuality that promotes mutual respect, nurturing, and pleasure between partners.       

In recreational therapy, also available through sex-offender treatment programs, you learn healthy ways to enjoy yourself. When you stop participating in activities that promote your deviancy, you need to replace the old behaviours with new skills, including how to spend free time, how to enjoy healthy excitement, and how to get your social needs met in a healthy way. Talk to your local community centre or Council about recreational groups or leisure activities.

Finding social support groups that encourage honesty and promote mutual support is essential to breaking your old deviant cycles. Groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sexual Addicts Anonymous or Sexaholics Anonymous are all useful resources for an offender who wants to assure and maintain his recovery. Participating actively in such groups also interrupts your tendency to withdraw from people when you're starting a deviant cycle.

Understanding the architecture of your deviant cycle is a major step toward breaking your cycle. By reading the material on this website, you have made a beginning towards gaining the skills & tools necessary to break the links and chains of your deviant cycle. By understanding how today's actions influence you next week or next year, you can take real control over your life, making positive choices for the future and leaving the old "victim of circumstances" identity behind. The map you now have of your deviant cycle is a plan for change. You can make real change now that you understand how your decisions are influenced by what you do, think, and feel. Understanding how you go wrong gives you an awareness of how to go right.

 

INDIVIDUAL RELAPSE PREVENTION PLAN

Relapse Prevention is a way of thinking or looking ahead to prevent getting into trouble again. Look at it as your insurance policy. Basically, you look at the progression you went through to get into trouble and you put a stop at each point to escape and/or avoid getting any closer to the trouble again.

 

Abstinence - No More Offending:

1. What keeps you from sexually offending again?

What are you thinking nowadays when you are not sexually offending?

How do you feel now that you are not sexually offending?

What are you doing that makes you so sure that you are not sexually offending?

2. How have you set-up your life to stop you from sexually re-offending?

List healthy activities you participate in and healthy outlets when you are upset.

Who do you talk with now about positive and negative things in your life?

What high risk situations do you try to avoid?

3. What are some of the areas of your sexual offense cycle you still have problems with?

4. Write out rules for staying away from potential victims, review your RP plan, make leisure time plans, school and work plans.

5. Who can you tell about your urges and deviant thoughts?

 

Motivation:

6. List the current situations that make you angry, depressed, stressed out, and want to take revenge.

What do you think is going on that is making you so angry and stressed out?

7. Write down other ways of understanding your current situations.

Identify specific problem situations with your partner, parents, siblings, employer, and/or friends.

Write down specific coping skills to handle the situations.

Write down how you and your partner feel in conflict situations (perspective taking).

How can you take responsibility for further developing coping and problem- solving skills (eg counselling, any special programs, school work, and discussion with other people)?

 

Internal Barriers:

8. What thinking errors / lies, misinterpretations, etc. have you solved?

9. Which thinking errors do you still have trouble with that might contribute to your decision making?

10. Write down your current deviant sexual fantasies. Provide details regarding the target of your fantasies.

What are the triggers and/or warning signs before you start to fantasize?

What did you do to allow the fantasies to go on?

11. What must you do the next time to stop the fantasies from becoming too strong?

How are you going to change your sexual fantasies to allow only consenting adult sexual relationships?

12. Who can you tell about your current deviant sexual fantasy?

13. Write out your plans for consenting adult relationships and outlets.

List the people you can discuss your thoughts and feelings with so as to help you check your thinking errors.

 

External Barriers:

14. Which events, feelings, and thoughts are still high-risk elements for you?

List as many as you honestly can.

15. Now, please give your interpretations as to how you would understand those events, feelings, and thoughts to be high-risk. Provide your answers in great detail.

16. Give some other interpretations of how you would "escape" and/or "avoid" those high-risk elements. Again, provide your answers in great detail.

17. Give some examples of how you have managed to overcome some high-risk elements and/or situations.

As well, identify your planning towards these high-risk elements and/or situations which you subsequently conquered.

Finally, what have you learned from using the other interpretations to overcome those high-risk elements and/or situations?

18. Write a list of safeguards or preventions for those identified high-risk elements and / or situations.

Then make a list of people whom you think should receive the "safeguards" list you just prepared.

Why do you think these people should receive the "safeguards" list?