Defense Date

11-7-2014

Graduation Date

Fall 2014

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Clinical Psychology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Martin Packer

Committee Member

Jessie Goicoechea

Committee Member

Scott Churchill

Keywords

Contradictory Demands, Double Binds, Ethics, Sex Offender, Treatment

Abstract

This research conceptualizes "sex offender" as an institutional category. The purpose of this research is to show how people become constituted as sex offenders in the context of the two systems that make demands of them: the mental health and legal systems. These systems view sex offenders in ways that contradict, in that they are viewed as sick by the mental health system and as criminal or bad by the legal system. As a result, the demands these systems make contradict and at times impose double binds on the people who have to navigate them. The data I collected demonstrate how these contractions and double binds occur, creating practices that are impractical (they do not do what they intend to) and unethical (they do more harm than good). There are three methods of data collection: field work, two focus groups, and interviews. In most research the voice of the sex offender is silenced, but this research makes a point to emphasize the voices of those participants known as "sex offender."

Format

PDF

Language

English

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