Adult Male Sexual Offender Treatment: The Relationship of Schemas, Working Alliance, and Treatment Outcome

Maladaptive schemas and working alliances of 69 adult male convicted sexual offenders were quantitatively examined for predictive relationships to treatment outcomes. One Caucasian female psychologist participant completed the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI-S, therapist form; Horvath, 1984) for each of her 69 client participants. The modal participant of the sample was between the ages of 35 and 54 (39%), was Caucasian (54%), and had a low Static-99 (Hanson & Thornton, 2000) risk for recidivism (42%). None of the client-reported maladaptive schemas captured by the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S3; Young, 2005) predicted treatment outcome. Treatment outcome was significantly predicted by therapist-reported overall working alliance scale, yet not one of the subscales (goal, task, and bond) predicted treatment outcome. The Static-99 risk assessment score also significantly predicted treatment outcome. The treatment outcome measure was derived from the most recent therapist-reported progress report to the state's parole/probation officer. Therapist- and client-reported working alliance scales were highly correlated with each other.