Geert Vervaeke

• Full Professor
• Dean at Tilburg University

Het gebruik van androgeendeprivatietherapie (ADT) toont veelbelovende resultaten in de behandeling van parafiele stoornissen. Ondanks de ingrijpende bijwerkingen ont-breekt onderzoek naar de subjectieve ervaringen van seksuele delinquenten. Dit onder-zoek beschrijft de fysieke, psychologische en seksuele ervaringen met ADT aan de hand van 12 semige...

Het begrip «werkalliantie» is afkomstig uit de psychologie en de psychotherapie, en verwijst naar het actieve samenwerkingsverband tussen de partijen bij een professionele relatie. Deze bijdrage onderzoekt of relevante inzichten uit de psychologie ook in de juridische context van het notariaat nuttig kunnen worden ingezet. In het bijzonder wordt ge...

Background The use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) shows promising results in the treatment of paraphilic disorders. Although the side effects of ADT can be intrusive, there is no research into the experiences of patients with pedophilic disorder themselves. Aim This research aims to explore the psychological, physical, and sexual experience...

The two suicide bombings at Brussels Airport on March 22, 2016 initiated a substantial modification of the security measures at the airport. One of these counter-terrorism measures implies the training of certain police officers into ‘behaviour detection officers’ (BDO’s), whose task it is to notice ‘suspicious behaviour’ of ‘high risk’ passengers....

Although the use of pharmacotherapy appears to be successful in the treatment of sex offenders, it is important to understand the implications of libido-inhibiting medication on the general health and well-being of patients. Therefore, qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 male sex offenders diagnosed with pedophilia to gain insight in thei...

Aim: This presentation aims to point out difficulties in the identification of mentally vulnerable suspects during a criminal investigation. It furthermore aims to reflect on the relationship between the role of the police and the role of the criminal defence lawyer in this matter. Presentation content: Suspects with a mental health problem, a le...

Both the academic literature and recent EU legal instruments recognise the specific needs of vulnerable suspects. In particular, they stress the important role of the criminal defence lawyer in compensating for a suspect’s vulnerability. There is, however, still a lack of theorization on the precise meaning of vulnerability. Based on the results of...

Since the development of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), one of the most widely used actuarial risk assessment instruments, numerous replication studies have shown its usefulness in predicting (violent) recidivism among various offender populations. It is not clear, however, whether these findings can be generalized to forensic psychiatri...

Zowel uit de rechtspraak van het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens als uit een aantal rechtsinstrumenten van de Europese Unie blijkt de nood aan een aangepaste bejegening van zogenaamde kwetsbare verdachten en beklaagden. Enerzijds wordt in deze bijdrage onderzocht welke factoren ten grondslag kunnen liggen aan de kwetsbaarheid van een verda...

The social desirability bias can be considered a two-dimensional construct, consisting of impression management and self-deception. Although social desirability is often considered a threat to the validity of intimate partner violence (IPV) reports, little is known about which dimension is most responsible for this distortion. Furthermore, it is un...

Wetenschappelijk onderzoek toont aan dat bepaalde verdachten een verhoogd risico vertonen op het afleggen van onbetrouwbare en/of invalide verklaringen. In deze bijdrage wordt allereerst nagegaan welke factoren ten grondslag liggen aan dit risico. Vervolgens wordt onderzocht in welke mate advocaten deze factoren kunnen detecteren in het kader van d...

Scientific content analysis (SCAN) is a technique that claims to enable the detection of deception in written statements. The underlying assumption is that statements of self-experienced events differ in several ways – such as liveliness and concreteness – from imaginary statements. It is used in many countries as an investigative tool. Nevertheles...

Preference discrepancy is the difference between partners’ ideal and real relationship, and is assumed to have a negative effect on the relationship. This study examines its effect on psychological and physical intimate partner violence perpetration and victimization, and hypothesizes this effect will be mediated through relationship satisfaction,...

The importance of building rapport when interviewing witnesses and suspects is emphasized in many interview models developed in Europe as well as in the United States. The construct of rapport shows a number of similarities with the construct of the working alliance, which is already extensively examined in therapeutic settings. Despite the importa...

The construction of the Mind-scale was initiated by therapeutic experiences with forensic patients that are not easy to treat. They impressed by their emotional disconnection and misleading psychological insight. Moreover, these patients strongly advocate a self-assured autonomy, bluntly saying that mandatory treatment is unnecessary. Winnicott's T...

Like other modern-day democracies, Belgium has in the last quarter century introduced many changes in its system for justice administration, by undertaking judicial reforms and commissioning empirical research on public confidence. Following long years of fierce criticism of the police and the criminal justice system since the late 1980s, the turn...

Considerable emphasis is placed on the importance of building rapport when interviewing witnesses and suspects. Despite the abundant literature on the working alliance in therapeutic settings, however, few studies have addressed the topic of ‘rapport’ in investigative interviewing. Conceptual analysis revealed a number of similarities between the t...

In the experience of stalking victims a common element is the fear of physical violence. Until now risk factors that predict physical violence within stalking contexts have been carried out in relatively small, clinical-forensic samples. Consequently, the validity and practical utility of these risk factors in the law enforcement context remains un...

Various European countries now have gained experience with stalking laws. Apart from a full trial, these laws sometimes also enable immediate interventions at the first signs of stalking. This article discusses such immediate interventions, and compares them with the situation in which the case has proceeded to the court. The Belgian and the Dutch...

In Belgium, police officers are obliged to attend advanced training in interviewing children. Research suggests training is not sufficient to acquire and maintain skills, but follow-up is also required. The present study aims to examine the influence of the type of follow-up (individual follow-up, collective follow-up and no follow-up) on the overa...

In deze bijdrage werd de invloed van interpersoonlijke factoren op pedoseksualiteit onderzocht. De variabe- len ouderlijke sensitiviteit, veilige romantische volwassen hechting, vertrouwen en persoonlijkheids- stoornissen, werden in een hypothetisch model ingebracht en getoetst bij een groep pedoseksuelen. Op grond van fitindices vonden we dat het...

‘Fear of crime’ research is gradually outgrowing the tenacious criticism of being caught within a conservative methodological frame, inherent to the era when the research tradition originated. Over time, the idea that ‘fear of crime’ can be measured in a reliable and valid way by using a single indicator has been questioned. However, using more adv...

This study examined recognition of and attitudes towards abnormal, persistent, unwanted attention, or stalking, in two professional groups closely involved in assisting the victims of this behaviour, i.e. police officers and general practitioners (GPs), in four European countries (Belgium, n = 185; UK, n = 118; Netherlands, n = 113; Italy, n = 100)...

From a clinical and social psychological perspective, this exploratory study aims at relating the hostage experience to hostage negotiation strategies. Therefore, we conducted 11 semi-structured and in-depth interviews with victims of two types of hostage-taking: sieges and kidnappings. The results showed that all hostages reported feelings of help...

This study examined recognition of and attitudes towards abnormal, persistent, unwanted attention, or stalking, in two professional groups closely involved in assisting the victims of this behaviour, i.e. police officers and general practitioners (GPs), in four European countries (Belgium, n = 185; UK, n = 118; Netherlands, n = 113; Italy, n = 100)...

This study examined parental sensitivity, relational attitude (i.e., trust, friendship, adult romantic attachment), and personality disorders in the aetiology of sexual offences among a group of 84 child molesters and a matched normal control group (n = 80). The child molesters were selected from either a community-based, educational training progr...

The persistent questioning within the ‘fear of crime’ literature of its own conservative measurement, has resulted in a growing tendency towards using scaling techniques, as a far better way of measuring a complex and multidimensional concept like ‘fear of crime’. Choosing more complex measures, however, gives rise to a number of ‘new’ issues relat...

This study investigates the overlap and differences between measures of worry and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It was expected that: (1) worry and obsessive compulsive symptoms are distinct concepts, yet that (2) worry and the cognitive components of OCD are more strongly related compared to the behaviour components of OCD. By means of conf...

Some important authors in the field of sexual delinquency stress the importance of inadequate attachment in the aetiology of sexual abusive behaviour. This contribution reports on parental sensitivity, trust, intimacy and adult romantic attachment in a group of sexual offenders (exhibitionists, child molesters and child rapists) and a matched norma...

In this study the psychometric properties of the PSWQ and the WDQ were investigated in a community sample. The PSWQ proved to be unidimensional although the results indicated that the negatively keyed items contributed less to the general factor. Internal reliability of the PSWQ was satisfactory. Confirmatory analysis of the WDQ indicated that some...

Attentional processes are assumed to play an important role in the maintenance of illness anxiety, although empirical support is relatively scarce. The present study explores the relationship between selective attention (i.e. private body consciousness and symptom reporting), intensive concentration (i.e. attentional control and sustained attention...

Reviews the main findings in psychotherapy research that can contribute to the two goals of the treatment-selection process: (1) facilitating the first phase of therapy and (2) enhancement of final outcome of therapy. Psychotherapy research that contributes directly to treatment selection is scarce since treatment selection as such is seldom the to...

In dit onderzoek wordt het verband nagegaan tussen enerzijds initiële extreme voorkeursverschillen, de zogenaamde voorkeursincongruentie tussen cliënt en hulpverlener en anderzijds drop–out, tevredenheid en werkalliantie. De resultaten tonen aan dat cliënten die de behandeling vroegtijdig afbreken significant meer voorkeursincongruentie vertonen da...

Although since the 1980s a majority of therapists were found to believe that values are embedded in psychotherapy (Garfield and Bergin, 1994), values are seldom a part of explicit interaction between client and therapist in clinical practice. One possible reason for the discrepancy between the therapists’ conviction and the actual clinical practice...

Sixty-six patients with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) underwent extensive psychological assessment. The purpose was to test the empirical validity of our biopsychological hypothesis about RSD which focuses on the role of helplessness and coping problems in the development, enhancement or maintenance of sympathetic dysregulation and/or limb dis...

In dit artikel wordt het begrip werkalliantie besproken vanuit het perspectief dat weinig maten beschikbaar zijn voor de evaluatie van indicatiestellingsprocedures. Het belang van het begrip wordt vervolgens geïllustreerd aan de hand van 1 een overzicht van factoren die een bijdrage leveren aan het tot stand komen van een werkalliantie en 2 een bes...

Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) is an enigmatic condition. Many clinicians, however, believe that psychological factors could contribute to the onset and persistence of the syndrome. In this article we critically review the evidence from psychometric and psychodynamic/biographical studies that suggests a role for such factors. An etiopathogeneti...

Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) is an enigmatic condition. Many clinicians, however, believe that psychological factors could contribute to the onset and persistence of the syndrome. In this article we critically review the evidence from psychometric and psychodynamic/biographical studies that suggests a role for such factors. An etiopathogeneti...