Boys Who Have Abused: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Victim/Perpetrators of Sexual Abuse

  By John Woods.
  Jessica Kingsley Publishers
  ISBN 1843100932
  £17.95








Arnon Bentovim’s foreword states that Woods is the ideal psychotherapist to write about the psychoanalytic approach to therapeutic work with young people who sexually abuse, writes Patrick Tomlinson.

Woods promotes a multi-systemic therapy, incorporating cognitive behaviour and psychoanalytic approaches, in the context of a supportive reliable placement. Rather than idealise one therapeutic approach, Woods encourages practitioners to communicate openly. This provides an antidote to the closed structures that perpetuate abuse.

He shows how abuse trauma can lead to problems such as gender identity disorders, paedophilia and psychopathology. The victim/perpetrator theme is central: the young abuser is also a child in need. Woods considers the developmental stage and emotional needs of young people as well as the need to focus on behaviour. This book is a hopeful one.

Patrick Tomlinson is director of practice, SACCS.