Commentary An Ethical Paradigm for Sex Offender Treatment: Response to Glaser

This paper responds to the recent article Therapeutic Jurisprudence: An ethical paradigm for therapists in sex offender treatment programs, in which the author argued that sex offender treatment is antithetical to the traditional values and ethics of the mental health professions. This paper will argue that sex offender treatment does in fact occur in a context that is consistent with the ethical codes of mental health professions, including APA and NASW. Evidence countering Glaser’s six examples of ethical breaches will be offered. Finally, this paper will discuss the existing published code of ethics that pertains specifically to the treatment of sex offenders. Ultimately, we suggest that current practices are already very much in line with Glaser’s therapeutic jurisprudence model