Early maladaptive schemas in a sample of British adolescent sexual abusers: implications for therapy

The Cognitive Distortions and Implicit Theories of Child Sexual Abusers

“…Specifi cally, they suggest that particular sorts of experiences early in life may lead to the development of "specifi c sets of implicit theories" (p. 7). Note that this is consistent with fi ndings in the schema-focused literature; individuals who identifi ed themselves as being victims of abuse tended to exhibit different schemas from nonvictims (Richardson, 2005).…”

“…Another recent study (Richardson, 2005) used the Young Schema Questionnaire (Young & Brown, 1994) to analyse schema in adolescent sexual offenders and they reported a number of interesting fi ndings. Comparison of adolescents who abused younger children with those who offended against adults or peers showed that three schemas were signifi cantly more predominant in the latter group, namely: "entitlement/self-centredness", "insuffi cient self-control/self-discipline" and "emotional inhibition".…”

“…Evidence suggests that the schemas that are present are somewhat different from those seen in other offenders. In particular, thoughts of worthlessness are prominent (Milner & Webster, 2005;Richardson, 2005).…”

Child maltreatment and adult criminal behavior: Does criminal thinking explain the association?

“…Entitlement was not related to prior commission of sex offenses. Although some studies link a sense of entitlement to sexual offending (Hanson et al, 1994;Marziano et al, 2006), others suggest this thinking style is not strongly characteristic of sexual offenders who have sexual victimization experiences or have offended against minors as opposed to adults or peers (Richardson, 2005). Further, reactive criminal thinking, particularly including cognitive indolence and discontinuity, was also related to increased sexual offending.…”

The Dusseldorf Illustrated Schema Questionnaire for Children (DISC)

“…Similarly, for adolescents and children, there have been a substantial amount of studies which have indicated a strong link between EMS and psychopathological symptoms and mental disorders (Bakshi Bojed & Nikmanesh, 2013;Calvete, 2008Calvete, , 2014Calvete, Orue, & Hankin, 2013a, 2013b, 2015Damiano, Reece, Reid, Atkins, & Patton, 2015;González-Jiménes & del Mar Hernández-Romera, 2014;Lawrence, Allen, & Chanen, 2011;Lumley & Harkness, 2007;Muris, 2006;Orue, Calvete, & Padilla, 2014;Richardson, 2005;Roelofs, Lee, Ruijten, & Lobbestael, 2011;Roelofs, Onckels, & Muris, 2013;Simard, Moss, & Pascuzzo, 2011;Van Vlierberghe & Braet, 2007;Van Vlierberghe, Braet, Bosmans, Rosseel, & Bögels, 2010). Young and Brown (1990) first proposed 16 EMS, based on clinical experiences with chronic psychotherapy patients.…”