Implicit relational assessment procedure: assessing the effectiveness of a brief cognitive-behavioural analogue intervention in relation to restructuring implicit rape supportive verbal relations

Research investigating the relationship between cognitive factors (frequently labelled ‘cognitive distortions’ within forensic psychology) and sexual aggression has been hampered by methodological and measurement constraints. The standard explicit assessments generally deployed in this area (e.g. questionnaires) are transparent, susceptible to social desirability biases, and suffer from poor predictive validity. More recently, the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP; Barnes-Holmes et al., 2006) has been developed to overcome some of these shortcomings. The IRAP is difficult to manipulate and has previously been used to examine implicit differences between convicted sexual offenders and non-offender controls (Dawson et al., 2009). However, questions remain as to whether implicit problematic sexual beliefs are prospectively predictive of overt behaviour, but also whether such beliefs can be influenced through therapeutic intervention. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a short analogue Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Intervention in restructuring rape supportive implicit cognition and to examine whether implicit measures of rape supportive beliefs can predict overt behaviour