Sex offender treatment is a process aimed at preventing identified sexual offenders from reoffending. It is an umbrella concept, which can include cognitive behavioral therapy delivered in groups, individually, or both, and medications aimed at minimizing sexual arousal or urge states. Sex offender treatment began as a behavioral discipline where interventions used classical conditioning paradigms in order to eliminate sexual arousal to children or to violent themes and to replace it with sexual arousal to mutually consenting sexual behavior with adults. These behavioral techniques proved too narrow and were replaced with more comprehensive cognitive behavioral interventions, beginning with relapse prevention, and more recently expanding to include more positive psychology concepts with the introduction of the good lives model. There is currently controversy about the available scientific evidence for the effectiveness of sex offender treatment, how to define appropriate treatment targets, and the use of certain types of techniques and technology, for instance polygraphy.
Most of the scientific literature on HIV prevention campaigns (and medical and psychosocial health care) neglect the fact that women can be infected by HIV. This neglect is demonstrated in several ways: women are described as infectors and not as infectees, the typical disease profile in women is not described, and female sexuality and the position of women in society are not taken into account in prevention campaigns. The relative number of women infected with HIV rises. Research on women and HIV is needed to slow the rise in infection rates and adequately address the medical and psychological health care of HIV-infected women.
Several studies address the problem of a relapse to unsafe sexual activity among gay men, and discuss the danger of a new wave of HIV-infections. The present study analyzes psychological predictors of unprotected intercourse in a Sample of 58 HIV-positive gay men. Fifteen persons out of this sample had at least occasionally unprotected anal or oral sex with ejaculation. This group displays a characteristic psychological profile. Compared to the control group, these men (1) are more depressive, (2) have a tendency to blame themselves for being infected(3) use an avoiding coping style, and (4) trust more in external control by professionals than in internal control. A psychological interpretation is proposed that sexual behavior can be regarded as a distracting coping mechanism against expression that is used to deny the threatening reality of the infection. The need for psychotherapy for HIV-infected persons is emphasized.
The objective of this article was to describe a representative city population of HIV antibody positive homosexual and bisexual men regarding their psychosocial situation, and to examine if awareness of their seropositivity and different sychosocial factors influenced the sexual contact pattern. The population consists of all delecled HN seropositive homosexual and bisexual men who did not have an AIDS-diamosis, and who were in contact with the only clinic in Malmo caring for seropositive individuals. Forty-seven gay men (72%) participated in the sludy during a one-year period from April 1988 when the population was defined. All men were inter-
The main question asked in this paper is: how do the more long-ten survival sirategies among HIV-pdsitive homosexual men vary with the notion of themselves as homosexuals? This question is dscussed in the light of two case studies that were selected from a sample of 16 HIV-positive homosexual men in a study on homosexuality and HN performed by the author in Sweden during 1987-88. The two cases illustrate the complex interaction between a person's sexual orientation identity and his reactions lo becoming V-positive, both in a short and long-term perspective. The conclusion of the qualitative analysis is that to some, being HIV-positive is the beginning of a dynamic personal development, while in others it causes a strong homophobic reaction, which is closely connected with the person's aversion to regarding himself as homosexual.
