Sex, Love, and Violence: Strategies for Transformation

Several years ago I attended a seminar at Boston University’s School of Social Work. Cloe Madanes work with young sexual offenders was cutting edge. It not only inspired me professionally but, as an abuse survivor, it touched me. When the mother on the video said that no one had ever apologized to her when she had been abused, I choked back my tears. No one had ever told me they were sorry, either.

I shared my experience with the people closest to me and eventually included it in Not My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches. I finally got around to reading Madanes book this past week.

Madanes has done pioneering work with young sex offenders. I think she correctly approaches abusive behavior from a moral perspective. It isn’t just that sexual offenders cannot control their sexual impulses rather that they don’t want to. It is a failure of moral development and conscience. Perpetrators do not empathize with their victims and do not recognize their moral obligations to care for and protect individuals weaker themselves.

I was surprise that Madanes did not appear to recognize the importance of religious faith. She refers to religion as decadent and implied it was a counter force to therapy. Given her own therapeutic approach I had expected her to recognize that religion was the source of her own morality and that without it humankind would devolve into primitive and amoral behavior.

Despite her negative comments about religion Madanes’ conceptual framework for family interactions are useful. I will certainly apply it in my own work. The core of the book contains clinical vignettes which are an invaluable reference for psychotherapeutic work.

Rating: 3 / 5