Can You Rehabilitate a Predator?

If the many, many allegations against him are true, Harvey Weinstein should probably be in jail. But for now, we're told, he's in sex addiction rehab.

After the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other news organizations revealed the Hollywood producer has allegedly raped, assaulted, and harassed more than 40 women, Weinstein's spokesperson said he was getting therapy.

"Mr. Weinstein has begun counselling, has listened to the community, and is pursuing a better path," she said in a statement to media. Weinstein himself told the New York Times, "My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons."

Since then, TMZ reported Weinstein checked into sex addiction therapy in Arizona.

When it comes to big scandals, trotting out therapy as a public relations strategy is nothing new. Jian Ghomeshi said he was going to therapy, as did Anthony Weiner, Mel Gibson, and Chris Brown, to name a few. We have no way of judging who is and isn't being sincere in their attempts to get help, though it's difficult to not be cynical about the staged nature of it all.

But is "sex addiction" treatment really what an accused rapist like Weinstein needs? Moreover, what are the treatment options for someone who has committed sex offences and is genuinely remorseful?

Robin Wilson, a Florida-based psychologist who has been working in sexual violence for 34 years, told VICE he has reservations about the term "sex addiction." (It is not included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.)

"It's compulsive behaviour, not really addictive per se. You're engaging in a natural process but you're doing it more often and more intensively than you naturally should," he said, noting that with so-called sex addiction, there aren't necessarily victims. "There are probably lots and lots of people who sit in a basement and masturbate themselves silly all night long to the extent that it affects their jobs and their family relationships and whatever else. Those are people who need some treatment. But it's more around how they manage their own individual sexuality."

What Weinstein is accused of, on the other hand, he said, "is a completely different animal. Forcing people to engage in behaviours against their will. That's sexual offending, not sexual compulsivity."

For sex offenders released from prison, and people who are "truly repentant," Wilson, who was previously chief psychologist in Ontario for Corrections Canada, said there are four basic treatment phases.

The first is focused on preparing for the process of change.

"Most people are inclined to deny—to minimize to not really want to deal with their issues," he said. The first phase gets them over that hump and in a place where they're open to receiving help.

The next phase is about identifying where the problems are and getting them out on the table, said Wilson.

"What happened when you were offending? What was going on in your life? What was influencing you? What were you thinking about?" he explained. For a serial predator, Wilson said those problems could include a hostile view of women, "that sort of idea that women are there to provide me with a service…that men have needs and they're there to also fulfil that."

Phase three focuses on fixing what you identified as problematic in the second phase.

"If you believe that women who wear short skirts want to be raped, you identify that in phase two, then in phase three, you would talk about how that's got nothing to do with how they feel about sexuality—that's their personal choice about dress." As another example, he said if a person believes that children can consent to sex, in phase three you would realize "they're not able to do that because their brains aren't fully formed and because sexuality is not a part of their life."

Phase four is maintence, said Wilson. You've learned the new behaviours but you need supervised practice. He described this as being like "internship" where individuals are on probation or parole but still receiving outpatient treatment.

"Ultimately if the first four phases go well, the person will go back to the community and engage in a normal life without being plagued by the sorts of difficulties they had before."

Calgary-based forensic psychologist Cynthia Baxter also told VICE there isn't enough scientific consensus to support "sex addiction" as a diagnosis. Baxter runs treatment programs for sex offenders in the criminal justice system as well as people who've identified themselves as having problematic behaviour but haven't yet committed crimes.

She said for some people, behaviour like what Weinstein is accused of is about "power and control and intimidation and sexual gratification from that." The allegations against him suggest he is pretty narcissistic, she added.

Other people may have inadequate social skills and not understand acceptable courtships.

Depending on the individual's needs, Baxter said one form of treatment would be cognitive behavioural therapy, with the aim of identifying errors and distortions around how someone views sexuality and replacing those thoughts with information about acceptable interactions.

Baxter said she's currently "overflowing with patients"—to the point where she can't take on any new ones. In Canada, she said programs like hers are not well advertised or accessible, in part because of a lack of funding.

"Most people say if someone is a sex offender, just lock them up and throw away the key. The problem is, in Canada, we don't do that, so what's the backup plan?"

VICE also spoke to Kevin Vowles, community engagement manager at White Ribbon, a group dedicated to preventing violence against women and holding men accountable.

Vowles said if Weinstein is sincerely sorry for what he's allegedly done, he would need to ask his victims how his actions impacted them and what they need from him to feel better.

"That would be quite an omission of guilt and an entirely different level of accountability than I believe we've seen," he said.

He said the organization has done work with a Toronto-based group of counsellors called The Continuum around contextualizing sexual violence and how we can prevent it. One of the ways to do that, is by calling men and boys to speak out about what they know.

"Men had to have known about this behaviour and stay silent about it," he said.

Since the allegations broke, multiple men close to Weinstein, including Quentin Tarantino, have admitted they knew Weinstein was predatory towards women but did nothing to stop it.

Wilson said the treatment process can take anywhere from one to two years or 10-20 years for sexually violent predators. But with the right help, he said people can change their behaviour.

Bearing in mind that 65 percent of sexual offences are not reported to authorities, if someone completes a sex offender treatment program, their risk of reoffending is reduced by 25-40 percent, he said. Globally, the average rates of re-offending for sex offenders are 10-15 percent over five-10 years post-release.

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