Psychological treatment of men convicted of gender violence: a pilot-study in the Spanish prisons

In this paper the effectiveness of a psychological treatment program for men who are in prison because of having committed a serious offence of gender violence is tested. The sample consisted of 52 men who were imprisoned in 8 Spanish prisons. The psychological treatment was a cognitive-behavioral program, in a group format, with 20 weekly sessions that lasted for 8 months. The results showed the utility of the treatment program, with a significant improvement of the irrational beliefs both about women and about violence as a strategy to cope with everyday difficulties, as well as a significant decrease of the general psychopathological symptomatology and, more specifically, of the degree of anger and hostility. On the other hand, results indicated that the only difference between the patients who dropped out of treatment and the ones who completed it was the level of initial motivation for treatment. Likewise, predictive variables of therapeutic results were the absence of a previous psychiatric history and the lower level both of global psychopathological symptomatology and of hostility. Implications of this study for clinical practice and future research in this field are commented upon.