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Thinking About Thinking (Errors)Dr. D. J. Williams LCSW and PhD a b c & Mr. Andrew Mike Hanley LCSW and MSW d ea Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation , University of Alberta , Edmonton, Canadab Northern Utah Outpatient Services , Center for Family Development , Salt Lake City, UTc American Association of Correctional Psychology and the National Organization of ForensicSocial Workd Center for Family Development , Salt Lake City, UTe Weber Human Services , Ogden, UTPublished online: 11 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Dr. D. J. Williams LCSW and PhD & Mr. Andrew Mike Hanley LCSW and MSW (2005) Thinking About Thinking(Errors), Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 5:2, 51-58, DOI: 10.1300/J158v05n02_03

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PRACTICE UPDATE

Thinking About Thinking (Errors)

D. J. Williams, LCSW, PhDAndrew Mike Hanley, LCSW

ABSTRACT. Targeting and eliminating “criminal thinking errors,”stemming from the work of Yochelson and Samenow (1977), seems tobe a primary function of psychotherapy in many correctional treatmentprograms. However, an emphasis on such cognitive restructuring tech-niques arguably may be counterproductive to the therapeutic process. In

D. J. Williams is affiliated with the Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation, Uni-versity of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. At the time of this study, he was Director of North-ern Utah Outpatient Services for the Center for Family Development in Salt Lake City, UT.Dr. Williams holds Masters degrees from the University of Utah in Social Work and Exer-cise and Sport Science, and he received his PhD in Physical Education & Recreation fromthe University of Alberta. His clinical and research interests include topics within offenderrehabilitation, correctional recreation, and behavioral medicine. He is a member of theAmerican Association of Correctional Psychology and the National Organization of Fo-rensic Social Work. Andrew Mike Hanley is a Forensic Psychotherapist and Clinical Su-pervisor with the Center for Family Development, Salt Lake City, UT, and SubstanceAbuse Therapist for Weber Human Services in Ogden, UT. He received his Bachelor’s de-gree in Child and Family Studies from Weber State University and an MSW degree fromBrigham Young University. Mr. Hanley has considerable experience working with clien-tele in the areas of domestic violence, substance abuse, and sexual offending.

Address correspondence to: Dr. D. J. Williams, Faculty of Physcial Education &Recreation, E-424 van Vliet Centre, University of Alberta, Edmunton, AB CanadaT6G 2H9 (E-mail: dj.williams@sports.ualberta.ca).

Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, Vol. 5(2) 2005http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JFPP

© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J158v05n02_03 51

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this article we discuss how a preoccupation of focusing on the need toconfront criminal thinking errors is detrimental to forensic psychother-apy. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document DeliveryService: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com>Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc.All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Thinking errors, cognitive restructuring, therapeutic al-liance, offender rehabilitation, forensic psychotherapy

Perhaps the most widely used approach to offender psychotherapyinvolves the identification and attempted elimination of “criminalthinking errors,” which derives from the work of Yochelson andSamenow (1976, 1977; Samenow, 1984). According to the many adher-ents of this cognitive restructuring approach, criminal thinking bringscriminal behavior. Subsequently, the primary goal of therapy is to con-front numerous potential criminal thinking errors, which will help of-fenders eliminate such faulty cognitions and subsequently eliminatecriminal behavior. However, in a recent issue of Journal of ForensicPsychology Practice, Adams (2003) observed that most manuals usedfor conducting criminal thinking groups incorrectly assume that “every-one who engages in criminal thinking is a psychopath” (p. 58). Her arti-cle further explained how a focus on confronting criminal thinkingerrors may have significant negative impact on high percentages of of-fenders who have been abused as children (Adams, 2003). Similarly,the purpose of this article is to explore further how a preoccupation withconfronting criminal thinking errors can be potentially damaging to thetherapeutic process. Because most practitioners are already very famil-iar with criminal thinking errors, it is not our intention herein to specifi-cally define them, but rather, to illustrate how, collectively, the largersystem, and perhaps many of us within it, often engages in the same er-rors of thinking.

A FEW EXAMPLES OF “OUR” MIRRORING“THEIR” THINKING ERRORS

Overgeneralization, Oversimplification, and Rigidity

Adams (2003, p. 58) noted that “The assertion that criminals have a‘criminal personality’ or engage in ‘criminal thinking’ explains noth-

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ing; it is a tautology.” Criminal behavior is assumed to be evidence ofcriminal thinking, which then supposedly causes criminal behavior. Notonly is this circular reasoning, it seems to be an oversimplified explana-tion of crime, and ignores the numerous alternative theoretical explana-tions of crime (see Lanier & Henry, 1998). Furthermore, although“rigid” thinking has been identified as a criminal thinking error, suchrigid thinking among many practitioners, that criminal thinking errorsare the primary cause of crime, displays that same thinking error. Suchrigid thinking among practitioners stifles potential progress that couldresult from a willingness to explore alternative treatment interventions,and it often marginalizes those who favor such alternative approaches.Furthermore, a refusal to search for new modes of treatment seems toviolate a central principle of the corrections field. The AmericanCorrectional Association’s (2002) Declaration of Principles states,“Corrections must be committed to pursuing a continual search for newknowledge, technological advances, and effective practices that strive to-ward excellence and positive change.”

Power Thrust

Power thrust is believed to involve intimidation and illustrates a gen-eral need for power and control within relationships. Doesn’t the cor-rectional system exert its power and control over offenders, and toooften punitively and inhumanely? Aren’t offenders often coerced intoparticipating in treatment, despite the questionable ethics of coercedcounseling (see Shearer, 2000)? We are reminded of Foucault’s (1977)brilliant socio-historical illustration of how power operates within thecorrectional institution to normalize, and how the institution uses the‘scientificity’ of other social and behavioral disciplines to carry out thisprocess. Foucault (1977, p. 296) explained:

But the supervision of normality was firmly encased in a medicineor a psychiatry that provided it with a ‘scientificity’; it was sup-ported by a judicial apparatus which, directly or indirectly, gave itlegal justification. Thus, in the shelter of these two considerableprotectors, and, indeed, acting as a link between them, or a place ofexchange, a carefully worked out technique for the supervision ofnorms has continued to develop right up to the present day.

Are we ever guilty, collectively or individually, of power thrusting–thissame criminal thinking error of which we accuse offenders?

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One Way Trust and Fear of Fear

One way trust seems to be the idea that criminals expect others totrust them, but they don’t trust others. Here again, it is not difficult to seehow this can be a difficult sell to offenders–we expect offenders to trustus, yet we don’t trust them. But, why should they trust us? It is not un-common for us to send them back to prison if they fail to comply withour demands, perhaps not all of which are necessarily reasonable. Andoften, the deeper relationship messages (contrasted with content, or ver-bal, messages) sent to offenders by the correctional system–even afterthe successful completion of therapeutic programming–are messages ofdistrust. For example, it is common for sex offenders to be highly moni-tored for years, even after their treatment is completed. Their picturesare posted on the internet in the name of public safety so that memberswithin the community can be aware of their risk. Aren’t offenders capa-ble of change? Kersting (2003) quoted sex offender researcher KarlHanson regarding widespread misperceptions in sex offender recidi-vism rates, “Even when we’re talking with law enforcement officials,they’ll guess demonstrated rates to be in the 70s or 80s, so real rates of10 to 20 percent surprise everybody.” Despite rhetoric of communityreintegration, there remain clear and obvious messages to offenders thatthey are not to be trusted. We must therefore ask ourselves, do we reallytrust that our treatment works?

Perhaps lack of trust and power thrusting that occurs by the systemand some of those within it reflect our own “fear of fear.” According tothis thinking error, offenders have difficulty dealing with the emotion offear, while anger, aggression, and violence may be common reactions tosuch fear. But, are we quite often afraid of our offender-clients and theirfuture behavior? Do we sometimes unconsciously react to our own fearby trying to control them and exert more power over them? While wehave an ethical obligation to do what we can to prevent future victimiza-tion, it may be considered unethical to exert any amount of additionalcontrol beyond what is absolutely necessary to prevent such crime.Such is a very difficult task that we undertake, given that the actual riskof each offender is impossible to determine. Nevertheless, gross erroron the side of “public safety” remains unethical and perhaps may actu-ally increase risk for re-offense in some cases. Therefore, we must beaware of our own fear, its consequences to offender-clients, and howthis fear impacts correctional treatment.

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Lack of Empathy and Objectification

Samenow (1984) asserted that lack of empathy is perhaps the defin-ing trait of the criminal–people are viewed as puppets and pawns. Crim-inals apparently view the world as a place for their coercion andmanipulation (Samenow, 1998). Yet, do we have sufficient empathywhen our focus is so highly skewed to assessing cognitive processes?Do we genuinely accept emotional pain experienced by our clients, ordo we sometimes tend to dismiss it as a “victim stance.” Adams (2003,p. 53) reported that “we have . . . focused almost exclusively on assess-ment rather than treatment and, in doing this, have fostered the percep-tion that most forensic clients are not amenable to treatment.” If thisobservation contains truth, it seems to expose our own lack of empathyfor our offender-clients.

Interestingly, forensic assessment is based on traditional science,which as a method of knowing uses powerful “distancing devices” to“call attention away from the agent and place the object(s) at a seemingdistance” (Gergen, 1999, p. 74). Earlier, Richardson (1991) pointed outthat the grammatical split of “subject” and “object” is a powerful meta-phor that is unnoticed because of our language structure. In the case ofour discussion herein, the “objects” are our forensic clients–humanbeings. We must ask ourselves, “How does objectifying our clients,through reductionism and the use of extensive psychological testing, af-fect the process of treatment?” Do we create “us vs. them” distinctions,a major obstacle to the progress of offender rehabilitation (see Gen-dreau, 1996), right from the beginning of the assessment process simplydue to our scientific methods? Do our clients ever sense that, to the cor-rectional system, they are simply collections of thinking errors and riskfactors, or clusters of pathologies? And, what does such an “objective”process do to power relations within the therapeutic dyad. Do we expectoffenders to become law-abiding human beings, yet perhaps uncon-sciously (beginning with positivist and postpositivist assumptions aboutreality), we treat them as objects?

IMPLICATIONS FOR TREATMENT

Our hope in writing this article is to illustrate how easy it is, despiteour various “distancing devices” to become entangled in the same crim-inal thinking patterns as our clients. Yet, we are so immersed in our ownways of thinking, and our justification for confrontation, that we may

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not realize our own assumptions and cognitive “errors.” Nevertheless,what we tell our clients may be perceived as being hypocritical or uncar-ing. Adams (2003) articulated how the intense confrontation of offend-ers displaying criminal thinking errors may have a negative impact onmany who have been earlier victims of childhood abuse. Similarly, inour work with sex offenders, many of whom experience feelings of so-cial inadequacy around age-appropriate peers, we wonder if many ofthe relationship messages sent by many practitioners, including exten-sive and repeated use of testing, along with frequent distrust and con-frontation, actually exacerbate such feelings of inferiority amongclients. We sometimes wonder if there is the action of adding fuel to afire that we are supposedly trying to extinguish.

Unfortunately, as the classic Stanford Prison Experiment illustratedthree decades ago, the prison environment can quickly transform nor-mal, healthy human beings into those who dehumanize and inflict cru-elty (Zimbardo, 1999), and thus exhibiting obvious criminal thinking.Criminal thinking errors, then, and the extreme magnitude by whichthey are manifest, are not necessarily limited to criminals, do not neces-sarily begin in early childhood (see Harris, 1984), but may be more in-herent within ourselves and the work we do than we would care toadmit.

In light of the difficulties surrounding the confrontation of criminalthinking errors, we offer a few basic suggestions. First, is the notionthat there is no single, correct way to treating offenders. Offendersvary in intelligence, communication abilities, emotionality, age, gender,culture, ethnicity, race, personality, psychiatric comorbidity, and motiva-tion (Bonta, 1995; Kennedy, 2000; Stewart, 1995; Stewart & Cripps-Picheca, 2001). Given such variation, it makes little sense to imposestandardized programming.

Second, we believe that there is no substitute for establishing a strongtherapeutic alliance, which is the starting point for the process of psy-chotherapy. Across psychotherapy, the therapeutic alliance and its com-ponents, such as empathy, respect, liking, and positive regard, accountfor a substantial portion of treatment outcome variance compared tospecific intervention techniques (Horvath, 2001; Horvath & Symonds,1991; Lambert & Barley, 2001). Although forensic psychology hasbeen somewhat slow to recognize the importance of the therapeutic alli-ance, perhaps because of reasons associated with its own alliance withthe correctional system (see Foucault, 1977), scholars are realizing thata strong therapeutic alliance is crucial to successful outcome in this field(Serran, Fernandez, Marshall, & Mann, 2003).

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Third, there are promising approaches that consider utilization of of-fender strengths and positive behaviors, some of which address riskwithin such positive motivational frameworks (i.e., van Wormer, 1999;Ward & Stewart, 2003; Williams, 2003; Williams & Strean, 2002).While addressing criminal thinking errors may be useful at times, thisshould be done carefully and within a climate of caring and respect thatpositive approaches naturally provide. The language used by the thera-pist should be characterized by gentleness, flexibility and curiosity–en-couraging the client to share and safely explore that particular domainof his or her world.

Finally, we encourage practitioners to explore further their ownthinking errors–criminal and otherwise. We all have them, whichspeaks to our humanness. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we allhave multiple identities and multiple selves and voices that emanatefrom the single Self (see Bochner, 1997, 2001; Sparkes, 2002). Despitethe oft exaggerated claims of “objectively” making professional deci-sions in the arena of forensic psychotherapy, there is no such thing. Theprofessional self is always contaminated by the ordinary, fallible, hu-man self (Bochner, 1997). Indeed, we and our thinking (errors) aremuch the same as our clients and theirs.

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American Correctional Association (2002). Declaration of Principles. Online version:www.aca.org/pastpresentfuture/principles.asp [Retrieved March 1, 2004].

Bochner, A. P. (1997). It’s about time: Narrative and the divided self. Qualitative In-quiry, 3, 418-438.

Bochner, A. P. (2001). Narrative’s virtues. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 131-157.Bonta, J. (1995). The responsivity principle and offender rehabilitation. Forum on Cor-

rections Research, 7 (3), 34-37.Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.Gendreau, P. (1996). Offender rehabilitation: What we know and what needs to be

done. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23, 144-161.Gergen, K. (1999). An Invitation to Social Construction. London: Sage.Harris, H. (1984). The criminal personality: A dialogue with Stanton Samenow. Jour-

nal of Counseling & Development, 63, 227-229.Horvath, A. O. (2001). The alliance. Psychotherapy, 38, 365-372.Horvath, A. O., & Symonds, B. D. (1991). Relation between working alliance and out-

come in psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 38,139-149.

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Lambert, M. J., & Barley, D. E. (2001). Research summary on the therapeutic relation-ship and psychotherapy outcome, Psychotherapy, 38, 357-361.

Lanier, M. M., & Henry, S. (1998). Essential Criminology. Boulder, CO: Westview.Richardson, L. (1991). Value constituting practices, rhetoric, and metaphor usage in

sociology. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 11, 1-15.Samenow, S. E. (1984). Inside the Criminal Mind. Northvale, NJ: Aronson.Samenow, S. E. (1998). Straight Talk about Criminals. Northvale, NJ: Aronson.Serran, G. A., Fernandez, Y., Marshall, W. L., & Mann, R. E. (2003). Process issues in

treatment: Application to sexual offender programs. Professional Psychology: Re-search and Practice, 34, 368-374.

Shearer, R. A. (2000). Coerced substance abuse counseling revisited. Journal of Of-fender Rehabilitation, 30 (3/4), 153-171.

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Stewart, L. (1995). Offender motivation for treatment as a responsivity factor. Forumon Corrections Research, 7 (3), 5-7.

Stewart, L., & Cripps-Pecheca, J. (2001). Improving offender motivation for program-ming. Forum on Corrections Research, 13 (1), 18-20.

Van Wormer, K. (1999). The strengths perspective: A paradigm for correctional coun-seling. Federal Probation, 63 (1), 51-58.

Ward, T., & Stewart, C. A. (2003). The treatment of sex offenders: Risk managementand good lives. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34, 353-360.

Williams, D. J. (2003). “Quality of life” as perceived by sex offenders on early releasein a halfway house: Implications for treatment. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation,38 (2), 77-93.

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RECEIVED: 05/18/04REVISED: 05/18/04

ACCEPTED: 05/18/04

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