Counselling Partners and Relatives of Individuals who have Sexually Offended: A Strengths-Focused Eclectic Approach

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.