ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an assessment package which can be administered by a clinical psychologist and which results in suggested guidelines for involving neurologists, endocrinologists, or other treatment specialists in the paraphilias and sexual offenders. An assessment is presented that examines a number of prominent factors from the professional literature describing the background and clinical characteristics of paraphilic individuals and sex offenders. The factors include sexual history and preference, substance abuse, mental illness, personality and defensiveness, history of violence, neuropsychological impairment, and biological problems. Extra-familial child sexual abusers may show the largest reactions to a 5-to-8 year old female or may show larger reactions to pubescent females, or to adult females or even to both boys and girls. Phallometric testing is insufficient for examining the total sexual makeup of an individual. Sex offenders have learning difficulties that create both negative attitudes surrounding new learning and direction from authority as well as problems with language-based comprehension.
