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Introduction
I am an Associate Professor (Tenured) in the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary's University where I conduct research, teach, and supervise graduate and undergraduate students. I am also a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist in Nova Scotia. My research interests are broadly in the assessment, management, and treatment of atypical sexual interests in forensic and non-forensic populations and sexual violence prevention. I am also a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist in Nova Scotia, Canada
Current institution
Additional affiliations
May 2014 - present
Publications
Publications (61)
The sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism (SECTT), also referred to as child sex tourism, involves engaging in sexual activity with someone under the age of 18 in the context of travel and/or tourism. Research on the perpetration of SECTT is vastly underdeveloped. The present review considers the operationalization of SECTT, its pre...
This study sought to reach an international expert consensus regarding the diagnosis and treatment ofadults with a sexual interest in children in cases where treatment is non-mandated. An expert panel of 27participants (19 professionals and eight individuals with sexual interest in children) completed at least one of three rounds of an online Delph...
Purpose of Review
The present review examines existing childhood sexual abuse prevention programs that are focused on providing services to individuals who are at risk of perpetration. We describe several perpetrator-oriented prevention programs with evaluation data as well as avenues for future development and research.
Recent Findings
Perpetrati...
Phallometric assessment is used to assess men’s sexual interest in children and to assist in risk assessment and treatment planning. A common response pattern, especially when the assessment is conducted in a forensic context, is an indiscriminate pattern of penile responses: No sexual stimulus seems to produce a substantially higher response than...
Many individuals with sexual interest in children express a desire for mental health services but represent an underserved client population. An identified barrier to service provision is mandatory reporting legislation, which requires clinicians to report when they learn of a child who has been, or is at risk of being, sexually abused. We conducte...
We conducted three studies to examine the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Paraphilia Scale, a measure of paraphilic interests used in multiple studies. In the first study, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) testing different a priori models with a community sample of 1,040 adults previously reported by Seto et al....
Stigma-related stressors are central to understanding psychopathology, distress, and coping in stigmatized groups; individuals who experience attractions to children are a highly stigmatized group. Currently, few validated self-report measures exist to assess stigma-related stressors in minor attracted people (MAPs) and the current research describ...
There has been an increasing focus on the development of perpetration prevention programs designed to prevent the onset of sexual offending against children (online and offline). The present study involved a thematic analysis of 20 professional stakeholders in Nova Scotia who participated in a semi-structured interview that occurred prior to the de...
Suicide is a leading cause of death within correctional institutions (Katsman & Jeglic, 2019), with men convicted of a sexual offence over-represented among those who have attempted suicide (Ramesh, 2018). To date, only a single study that we are aware of (Jeglic et al., 2013) has examined the relationship between risk level on the Static-99R and a...
The advent of technology has dramatically changed the way sexual violence is perpetrated and experienced. Understanding the context of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) and risk factors associated with perpetration are key to effective prevention efforts. The present study explores three IBSA behaviours—coerced sexting, non-consensual dissemination o...
Psychologically meaningful risk factors are central to understanding why certain individuals commit sexual violence and to the provision of effective clinical service. The present study examined whether risk factors and other clinically relevant factors distinguished those with sexual interest in children who have (n = 39) and have not sexually off...
The Revised Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI-2) is a five-item measure that assesses for pedohebephilia (sexual attraction to prepubescent and pubescent children) based on child victim characteristics. We aimed to replicate findings by Seto, Sandler et al. (2017) by examining the predictive validity of the SSPI-2 in an independent sam...
Social support for child-attracted persons (CAPs) may be important for increasing well-being, thereby reducing the risk of committing child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, in-person social support may be difficult to obtain because of stigma. CAPs may instead turn to online forums for people who are sexually attracted to children. The present study lo...
In this chapter we focus on the heterogenous phenomena of contact sexual offending perpetrated by males. We briefly review the frequency of sexual offending with a focus on general trends in the literature regarding common characteristics among those who perpetrate and those who are victimized. Our review focuses on a discussion of different theore...
Background. Social support for child-attracted persons (CAPs) may be important for increasing well-being and thereby reducing risk of committing child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, in-person social support may be difficult to obtain because of stigma (Imhoff, 2015; Jahnke, 2018). CAPs may instead turn to online forums for people who are sexually att...
The present study examined North American clinician stigma and willingness to treat those with sexual interest in children. Clinicians (N = 101) were randomly assigned to a vignette describing a referral of a client with a sexual interest in children and asked whether they would accept the client for treatment. Vignettes differed in what the client...
There have been few studies examining the impact of sentencing
decisions on recidivism in individuals who commit sexual offences,
which is important as this population may face more stigma, and
different conditions in the community, than individuals who have
committed non-sexual offences. The present study examined how
sentence type and custodial s...
The present study examined North American clinician stigma and willingness to treat those with sexual interest in children. Clinicians (N = 101) were randomly assigned to a vignette describing a referral of a client with a sexual interest in children and asked whether they would accept the client for treatment. Vignettes differed in what the client...
The B4U-ACT Quarterly Review (B4QR) offers brief critical summaries of the latest publications concerning minor attracted people. The reviews are written by a committee composed of MAP-research specialists (often PhD students) as well as MAPs themselves. This issue reviews 7 articles published between February 2021 and June 2021.
There are few empirical studies examining sexological features of sexual interest in children among females. A non-representative sample of 20 females and 208 males who self-identified as having a sexual interest in children completed an anonymous survey. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine sexological features of sexual interes...
There is a need for community treatment programs for people who are sexually attracted to children, but individuals report difficulty accessing services. Individuals who are sexually attracted to children (n = 293) completed an online anonymous survey that revealed a significant positive association between maladaptive coping and two factors of the...
This study examined whether men who committed undetected sexual offenses would show more evidence of sexual interest in children than their detected counterparts. It also considered whether denial or minimization of offending history explained observed differences between undetected and detected men. In an archival database of 2,236 men, 96 were un...
Corrigendum to "The Revised Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI-2) May Be a Measure of Pedohebephilia"
Aim/Background
Victim age polymorphism occurs when someone offends against victims that span multiple age groups (e.g., child and adult victims). There is a need to better understand the correlates of age polymorphism, as clinicians are often asked about risk of offending against victims who may differ from the index offence victim as part of their...
Autoerotic asphyxiation (AEA) involves enhancing sexual arousal by deliberately self-inducing a reduction of oxygen to the brain. Most studies of AEA have focused on those who have expressed distress or who have died from the practice. The present study explores correlates of AEA-related distress in a community sample, focusing on self-reported mea...
SSPI-2 är en reviderad version av den ursprungliga screeningskalan för pedofila intressen
(SSPI: Seto & Lalumière, 2001) och är, likt SSPI, framtagen för att bedöma pedofila
intressen hos män (18 år eller äldre) som har begått minst ett sexualbrott mot ett barn
(någon som är under 15 år, baserat på självrapportering eller polisanmälan). Sexualbrott...
Stigma-related stressors are central to understanding psychopathology, distress, and coping on stigmatized groups. Individuals who experience attractions to minors (MAPs) are a highly stigmatized group. At present, there exist no self-report measures to assess stigma-related stressors in MAPs. The current research describes the development and init...
Autoerotic asphyxiation (AEA) is a sexual interest that involves heightening sexual arousal by deliberately self-inducing a reduced supply of oxygen to the brain. Most of the literature on AEA is comprised of case studies and research based on people who have died from the practice. The present study explored information about AEA practices and the...
Please see the following website for an open access version of our chapter: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/psychologycareers/chapter/psychology-and-the-law-in-canada/
Introduction:
The Revised Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI-2) was developed as a screening measure for pedophilia (sexual interest in prepubescent children), but the SSPI-2 items reflect offending against both prepubescent and pubescent children, roughly corresponding to victims under age 15.
Aim:
We examined whether the SSPI-2 is...
Previous research has shown clear relationships between academic misconduct and the dark triad personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). The present study aims to replicate and extend these findings by examining the relationship between different types of academic misconduct and the dark triad traits. We also explore the r...
In the present chapter we provide a review of the extant literature on the assessment, management, and treatment of adult males who have committed a sexual offense. We provide a review of the frequency and prevalence of sexual offending with a focus on trends in victimization data. We then focus on a comprehensive and multimodal assessment of empir...
Individuals with a sexual interest in children who have not committed a sexual offence are a client population that are currently underserved by psychologists. In the context of accessing and providing mental health services, mandatory reporting laws represent a key issue for clients and psychologists. For clients, mandatory reporting requirements...
Victim choice polymorphism refers to victim inconsistency in a series of offenses by the same perpetrator, such as in the domains of victim age, victim gender, and victim-offender relationship. Past studies have found that victim age polymorphic offenders have higher rates of sexual recidivism than offenders against adults only and offenders agains...
Hebephilia refers to sexual interest in pubescent children who are beginning to show early signs of sexual development but are sexually immature. The present study examined the relationship between hebephilia and victim age choice in a sample of 2,238 adult male sexual offenders. On average, offenders were 39 years old at the time of their assessme...
A current debate is whether actuarial risk assessment tools predict sexual recidivism in sexual offenders with intellectual disabilities (SOIDs). Since intellectual functioning exists on a spectrum, the present study examined the predictive validity of the Static-99R across the range of intellectual functioning. The sample was comprised of 454 adul...
Pedophilia refers to the recurrent, intense sexual interest in prepubescent children who, by definition, have not developed any secondary sex characteristics. Researchers have begun to investigate whether persons with pedophilia are qualitatively different from those without pedophilia (pedophilia is a taxon) or if people vary in their level of sex...
The Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI) is a structured rating scale of four child victim characteristics: number, age, gender, and relationship of victims. Sexual offenders against children who score higher on the SSPI are more likely to be identified as having pedophilic sexual arousal and are more likely to sexually reoffend. Recent...
Purpose: Victim age polymorphism (also referred to as victim age crossover) describes sexual offenders who offend against multiple age groups. The present study examined whether polymorphic offenders could be differentiated from age-specific offenders based on the role of opportunity in the commission of their offenses.
Methods: The current study e...
Objective:
Sexual interest in children is a well-known risk factor for sexual reoffending (recidivism). The present study examined the relationship between sexual interest in prepubescent children (pedophilia) or pubescent children (hebephilia) and sexual recidivism. It extended previous work by using multiple indicators of sexual interest, using...
Hebephilia refers to a persistent intense sexual interest in pubescent children. Although not as
widely studied as pedophilia, studies of hebephilia have indicated convergence in self-report and
sexual arousal. The present study expanded on previous work by examining convergent and
divergent validity across indicators of hebephilia that included se...
This chapter describes a motivation-facilitation model to understanding the psychology of adult male sexual offending. Motivations are factors that create the desire or intent to sexually offend, while facilitators are factors that increase the likelihood that a sexual offense will occur, given the presence of a motivator as well. We discuss releva...
Hebephilia refers to a sexual interest in pubescent children in Tanner Stages 2 or 3 of sexual development, in other words children in early pubescence. Hebephilia is clearly differentiated from pedophilia (sexual interest in prepubescent children in Tanner Stage 1 of sexual development) and teleiophilia (sexual interest in fully mature adults). Th...
Victim age polymorphism describes a subset of serial sexual offenders who offend against victims from multiple age groups (Guay, Proulx, Cusson, & Ouimet, 2001). Research on victim age polymorphism is an important area of study as polymorphic offenders have been found to have high recidivism rates (Parent, Guay, & Knight, 2011). The current study p...
Poster presented at the 2014 meeting of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, San Diego, CA.
Slide set from 2014 symposium on pedophilia and hebephilia at the annual meeting of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), San Diego, CA.
Poster presented at the 2014 meeting of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), San Diego, CA.
This entry briefly describes the scientific literature on hebephilia, a sexual preference for pubescent children that can be distinguished from the better known paraphilia of pedophilia, which refers to a sexual preference for prepubescent children. The existing research suggests hebephilia is a valid sexual preference, with implications for the as...
In this chapter, we provide an introduction and overview of the empirical literature on sexual offending. The chapter begins with a description of major theoretical models that have been developed to explain the occurrence of sexual offending and highlights their common underpinnings. We then differentiate sexual offenders from other types of crimi...
Background:
Weapons and drug offences incur a large cost to society and tend to be strongly associated. Improved understanding of their antecedents could inform targeted early intervention and prevention programmes.
Aim:
This study aimed to examine differences in criminal careers, childhood predictors and adolescent correlates among weapons-only...
The current study seeks to advance the faceted multidimensional scaling (termed FMDS) procedure used in much of the investigative psychology research. To this end, recent research on street robbery by Goodwill and colleagues will be utilised to illustrate the effectiveness of a facet scale method for offender profiling. Four FMDS themes of street r...
In a recent study of personal robbery, commissioned by the Home Office in the UK, a qualitative typology of robbery offences was proposed based on the approach used by the offender to commit the crime, consisting of four approach types: Blitz, Confrontation, Con, and Snatch. Conceptual inspection of the typology reveals that these proposed types ma...
Questions
Question (1)
Hello.
I have found a curvilinear effect between two variables and have plotted the curvilinear effect between x and y. The relationship is in the shape of an inverted u (x & y are positively associated up until a certain point where they are then negatively associated). I am trying to figure out where exactly the relationship changes from a positive to a negative association. At the moment, I am just looking at the graph and "eyeballing" it to try and figure out the value.
