86 Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling • April 2008 • Volume 28 © 2008 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Motivational Counseling: Implications for Counseling Male Juvenile Sex Offenders Samir H. Patel, Glenn W. Lambie, and Michelle Muenzenmeyer Glover Juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) often appear unmotivated to change, which thus necessitates a therapeutic approach that matches “resistant” client characteristics. In this article, the authors review common traits of JSOs, introduce motivational counseling as an effective treatment modality, and offer a case illustration. Recently, increased attention has focused on crimes involving sexual of- fenses and on the treatment of perpetrators (Duller, 2006). Whereas the research on treatment modalities for sex offenders has focused primarily on adult offenders (Miner, 2002), 50% of adult offenders indicate that their paraphilias and sex crimes began when they were adolescents (Andrade, Vincent, & Saleh, 2006). Additionally, Miner noted that adolescents per- petrate at least 15% of all reported sexual offenses in the United States. Given these statistics, it is surprising to learn that many of the current treatment modalities used with this client population fail to acknowledge the interaction between adolescent developmental patterns and sexual of- fending behaviors (Calley, 2007). Clearly, an approach that recognizes this relationship is warranted. Following a brief review of the literature that provides a framework for the proposed treatment approach (motivational counseling), we explore this theory and present a detailed case example that demonstrates the successful implementation of this approach. For the purpose of this article, the term sex offender is defned as one who committed any sexual act with a person of any age without that individual’s consent (Gerardin & Thibaut, 2004), and the term juvenile is used to defne an individual who is under 18 years of age. Therefore, a JSO is defned as a person who committed a sexual offense and who by law is considered to be old enough to be held criminally responsible for his or her actions but not old enough to be subjected to the fullest extent of adult law (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006). Additionally, because the majority of sex offenders are male (Rich, 2003), this article focuses exclusively on male offenders. According to Lemmond and Verhaagen (2002), therapeutic counseling approaches with JSOs have varied throughout the years. Regardless of the approach, the prevention of recidivism is the overall goal (Gerardin & Thibaut, 2004). Three approaches are identifed as the most frequently used models for treating JSOs: (a) psychosocial (Bourke & Donohue, 1996; Samir H. Patel, Glenn W. Lambie, and Michelle Muenzenmeyer Glover, Department of Child, Family and Community Sciences, University of Central Florida. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Samir H. Patel, College of Education, Department of Child, Family and Community Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1250 (e-mail: samir.p.h@gmail.com).