ABSTRACT
<Abstract: Chapter 4 builds on the preceding chapter, by highlighting three particular ways in which psychoanalytic ideas can enrich our understanding of apparently incomprehensible sexual offences. Although somewhat out of vogue, these ideas can offer insights into sexually aggressive or ‘perverse’ behaviours, enhancing the cognitive behavioural approaches with which practitioners are more familiar. The chapter focuses on identification with the aggressor as a means of understanding the mechanism that links childhood victimisation to adult sexual offending; it focuses on the core complex as a new way of thinking about deviant sexual interests and paraphilias. Finally, it explores ideas of fantasy as a regulator of self esteem, and concludes with practical applications for these ideas.>
