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Axis I Mental Health Disorders And Sexual Offending, Bruce Watt, Tania Withington

Bruce Watt

Extract:Popular culture touts mental illness as the primary explanation for the behaviors of identified sex offenders. Research with incarcerated sex offenders, forensic mental health patients, and sex offenders referred to treatment identify elevated rates of Axis I mental disorders; anxiety, depression, dissociative disorders, and psychotic illness (Dunseith et al. 2004). Epidemiology research with psychiatric patients has identified elevated rates of sex offending compared to community controls (Fazel, Sjostedt, Langstrom, & Grann, 2007). Importantly, the association between Axis I mental disorders and sex offending appears most evident in the presence of comorbid alcohol and substance related disorders (Alden, Brennan, Hodgins, & …