Treatment of a Sex Offender in a Maximum Security Forensic Hospital: Detecting Changes in Personality and Interpersonal Construing

Abstract

In recent years the personal construct systems of mentally abnormal offenders have increasingly become the subject of clinical research interest. This single case study examines a much underresearched aspect in this area, namely long-term changes in construing by a rapist. Essentially, this report illustrates that whereas psychometrically assessed hostility levels failed to show reduction, the patient's construing processes have indeed undergone marked changes. Although the patient's self-esteem shows some enhancement, in general his more recent pattern of construing points to increasing self isolation from others, especially relevant women. The flexibility and comprehensiveness of the personal construct approach was indicated to have more clinical utility than psychometric tests in the evaluation of change.