Conclusions and Perspectives for Patient Welfare

Abstract

Even when examined critically, our results allow us to conclude that outpatient psychotherapy can be successfully conducted with over 50% of sex offenders. This is encouraging considering the marked scepticism towards psychotherapy shown not only by the legal authorities, but also by psychotherapists who doubt whether psychotherapy can be effective in criminal delinquents, especially if they have perverse symptoms. The success rate would increase considerably if one used narrower selection criteria than ours. This was not our intention; we wanted to include a broad spectrum and to evaluate to what extent psychotherapy is suitable for these patients. In retrospect we are glad we did not restrict ourselves by using standard selection criteria as with our therapy approach we succeeded in working with patients who are otherwise considered virtually beyond the reach of therapy. Another important outcome of our study is that it provides criteria for a differentiated indication within a flexible therapeutic procedure.