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Sixtynine teenage child molesters received a 3month regimen of vicarious sensitization VS within the context of a randomized waitlist control group design. An adjunct to specialized cognitive therapy, VS is a form of aversive conditioning the aim of which is to decrease sexual arousal to prepubescent children. Perpetrators were alternately exposed to an audiotaped crime scenario designed to evoke deviant arousal followed immediately by an aversive video vignette. The aversive stimuli portray adolescent sex offenders contending with negative social, emotional, physical, and legal consequences of their sex crimes. Subjects received approximately 300 VS trials over 25 sessions. Results based on both phallometric data and selfreport measures showed significant decreases in deviant arousal for youths who received VS. Waitlisted youth did not, despite continuing in weekly peergroup therapy. When VS was later administered to wait listed youths, they too showed a significant treatment effect. Erectile responses to adolescent girls were unaffected by the procedure. Threemonth followup data indicated that treatment gains were maintained.

 

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