Vol. 74, No. 1 (Winter 2010) 1
This work was supported by research grants from the Government of Quebec (FQRSC
77193) and the Government of Canada (CRSH 752-2001-1562) to Sébastien Laro-
chelle. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Sébastien Laro-
chelle, Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en
Outaouais, 283 boul. Alexandre-Taché, Case postale 1250, succursale Hull, Gatineau,
Québec, Canada, J8X 3X7; e-mail: sebastien.larochelle@uqo.ca. We thank Frank E.
Yeomans for comments on earlier versions of this article. (Copyright © 2010 The
Menninger Foundation)
PNC AMONG SEXUAL OFFENDERS
Larochelle et al.
Psychological dimensions of
antisocial personality disorder
as predictors of psychotherapy
noncompletion among
sexual offenders
Sébastien Larochelle, PhD
Louis Diguer, PhD
Olivier Laverdière, PhD
Dominick Gamache, MPs
Paul Samuel Greenman, PhD
Jean Descôteaux, PhD
The goal of this study was to examine whether psychological dimen-
sions of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), as conceptualized
by Kernberg (1992), could predict psychotherapy noncompletion
(PNC) among 50 men found guilty of sexual abuse of children. All
participants began a 65-week, court-mandated course of cognitive-
behavioral psychotherapy, which 20 (40%) of them did not com-
plete. Pretherapy personality was assessed with the Structured
Clinical Interview for DSM Axis II Disorders (First, Spitzer, Gibbon,
Williams, & Benjamin, 1997), the Personality Organization Dia-
gnostic Form (Diguer, Normandin, & Hébert, 2001), and Blatt and
colleagues’ (Blatt, Bers, & Schaffer, 1993; Blatt, Chevron, Quinlan,
Schaffer, & Wein, 1988) scales of mental representations, as well
as the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (Spielberger, 1988).
A discriminant function analysis, which explained 46% of the total
variance, showed that descriptive (antisocial and narcissistic persona-
lity disorders), psychological (primitive defense mechanisms, identity
diffusion and self-representations), and demographic (work status