From the moment I first thought to write about this, I was already deciding not to. It was too revealing, too controversial and potentially alienating. And I am, in general, a person who does not like to rock the boat.
The reason I am writing it after all is that it simply became too difficult not to. This is what happens to writers who reject the subjects which compel us. They become the thoughts that keep up awake at night. We can't stop thinking about ideas, phrases, sentences, for that piece we have tried to banish. It follows us around like the scrawny stray kitten we try to tell ourselves is not in our interest to bring home. Eventually, we set a plate of tuna and some water on the front step, telling ourselves we won't be shopping for a cat bed and a new scratching post next week. Eventually, we start to write. We tell ourselves it will be for our eyes only. In this way, it is possible to begin.
I am a survivor of sexual assault, and I have worked as a therapist for over a decade (to varying degrees at different times) with people who have been convicted of sexual offenses. These two aspects of my history and identity (the survivor part and the working with offenders part) have been sources of secrecy and shame, separately but especially when combined together.
You have been through it. You know what it can do to someone. I don't know how you can stand to sit in a room with them.
I did not set out to work with offenders. In graduate school, when we learned about knowing your professional limitations and the ethical responsibility to refer clients elsewhere that you would not serve well, I often thought of sex offenders as one group I would probably never work with.
The journey began for me when I was working as a social worker on a psychiatric unit. A major part of my role as social worker was to do discharge planning, helping patient transition from hospital to community. One day, I acquired a young man who had just "aged out" of the juvenile justice system (on his 18th birthday, his stay at a locked juvenile facility had automatically ended). He needed hospitalization for PTSD, and had nowhere to go when his hospital treatment was completed. I learned that he had been in juvenile lock-up as the result of sexual offense convictions. Suddenly, I was responsible for helping a young man find a home with the knowledge that he had victimized people in the past, but with very little knowledge myself about what, if anything, needed to be done in terms of both public safety and his own ongoing treatment. I was scared, and I was right to be.
Fortunately, when I approached by boss, the unit director, with my concerns, he not only understood, but shared my concerns. We talked at length, and he supported my taking time to connect with a professional organization that deals with the treatment of sex offenders (MATSA, a chapter of the national group called Association of the Treatment of Sexual Abusers) to start learning about the problem of sex offending, public safety/risk management, and rehabilitation. The MATSA group was warm, welcoming, and enormously helpful. I recognized early on that I had a tremendous amount to learn if only to be responsible and ethical with regard to this one particular case, never mind the growing number of patients we were seeing on the unit who had shown sexually abusive behaviors at some point, whether or not they had actual convictions for these.
In the years to follow, I participated in intensive trainings. I read extensively. I took on increasing levels of responsibility doing offender-specific work. I began accepting invitations to present at conferences, and I agreed to write a chapter on the subject in a book which has since been published.
Much of this is nowhere on my resume. You will not find it on my business card. There are various reasons for this, but the primary one is that I have learned the hard way that some people judge, dislike, and ostracize people who work with offenders with almost the same level of vehemence with which they shun the offenders themselves.
That kind of work is fine for some people, but my support is with the survivors. They didn't ask for what happened to them, and their lives have been shattered over something that wasn't their fault. I would never work with a sex offender, personally.
It's not really work that a feminist would do.
So many deserving people need therapy and can't get it. I would never give my time to people who've spent their lives victimizing, when there are so many victims who need help.
These comments, which are only a very small sample of the many I have heard, hit me different ways at different times, depending on the circumstances, the source, and how I am doing on any given day. On a good day, it's unpleasant, but I shoulder it, and I'm less and less inclined as time goes on to repeat myself about why I think clinical work with offenders is in fact valuable and important. But on a difficult day, or when the comment comes from a loved one, or a colleague I admire and respect and whose admiration and respect I want in return, such comments can feel like a knife. They hurt because they invalidate me as a therapist, as a human being, as a woman, and as a survivor. And so, in response, my work in this area becomes a secret, split-off part. It goes unmentioned in my therapists group in which I meet weekly with colleagues. It goes unmentioned in my conversations and my writing. And when I do mention it, it is usually with disclaimer and apology. This is part of my work, but only a small part. And it's not what I'm most passionate about. And it isn't, you know, me.
The topic has come up for me again because I have been approached about doing some group treatment with offenders. And since my currently work life is a patchwork quilt of my various writing, editing, and therapy endeavors, in thinking about any new commitment or project, I try to tune inward, consider my priorities, and see how a new piece of work would fit.
The trouble is, my best efforts to tune into my own inner experience and wisdom on this subject have been hard to really hear lately, outshouted at times by the loud and impassioned voices of my past and would-be critics.
Surely you wouldn't want to do that work as the mother of a young daughter.
Is that really work you would want to be known for?
They are the dregs of society. You've been in this field for a lot of years now; you don't have to work with those people anymore.
Don't you think that prospective clients who are survivors would not want to see someone who works with offenders?
So, here it is, the big picture for me.
I work with offenders. When I apologize for it, I am part of the problem. Here are some of the reasons why I work with offenders:
1. As a human being, woman, survivor, and mother, I understand how enormously destructive sexual violence is, and I believe it is incredibly important to work on the problem of sexual abuse from a variety of fronts.
2. The myth that offenders are all exactly alike and will inevitably offend again is not supported by the research. Instead, the research shows that different sub-groups of offenders re-offend at different rates, and that different sub-groups are more amenable to treatment efforts,
3. People who have committed sexual offenses are human beings with histories, futures, and people in their lives. A percentage will want and try to prevent future offenses from happening, but this will be made more difficult in a situation where they are faced with constant rejection, hostility, and alienation. Few people sustain motivation to engage in meaningful change in the context of hatred.
4. Most incarcerated offenders will be released at some point, and will be living in the community, perhaps near you or me, perhaps in proximity to our loved ones. Many of these will be guarded with probation and parole officers. A knowledgeable and skilled therapist can help monitor risk (which can fluctuate) and be part of the effort to address public safety, at the same time as they are helping those offenders who are motivated to receive help.
5. We take a dangerous stance whenever we characterize any group of people as being worth less than other people. It is one thing to say we are personally not comfortable working with a population, and another thing entirely to say that they don't deserve help, and that helping them is not worthwhile.
6. For me personally as a survivor, doing this work makes me feel like I am doing something constructive in an area that connects with a difficult part of my history. This is not to say that all survivors should do or even consider this type of work. It is to say, though, that I should not be expected to refrain from it, or have my motives questioned or pathologized, or be accused of being on "their" side rather than the survivors' (Say what?) if I choose to do this work.
It feels important to mention that when I was first learning to do this work, I had the privilege of observing two top-notch female offender therapists facilitate groups at a prison-based treatment program. The therapists were competent, warm, no-nonsense, serious, empathic, direct, and just all-around fabulous. I have no idea whether or not they are survivors. What I do know is that they provided for groups of incarcerated men an experience with women who were strong and compassionate, powerful and emotional, receptive and directive and wise. I believe that at least some men in the group who had objectified women in their past will have a harder time doing so after interacting regularly with these two amazing women, and will therefore have more reservation about committing sexual violence against women in the future. For this and so many other reasons, I applaud these women and their work.
And I intend to stop apologizing for my own. Beginning with this post.
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