ABSTRACT
When people become addicted to going online for their sexual recreation, many cross the line into illegal territory by looking at indecent images of children while viewing pornography, or having indecent conversations with children via social media. This chapter opens the book by discussing a typology of online sexual offending, and clarifies the focus of the chapters to come. It discusses how ‘the knock’, the process of arrest for these individuals, produces high suicidality potential among these alleged offenders from chronic uncertainty and consequential losses, together with a loss of hope in a social context of vilification and abhorrence. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the Criminal Justice System delays which can extend over a period of 3–5 years. It also highlights the collateral damage inflicted on the families of these individuals, most notably their children who they are trying to protect. The same case study runs throughout this book, and in this chapter the case study commences with the client attending therapy for the first time after receiving the knock.
