The Stalker’s Clinical Risk Factors and Future Hazards Specific to the Stalking Situation
| Risk Factor | Management Possibilities |
|---|---|
| Clinical | |
| Attitudes toward, and beliefs about, the victim that sustain stalking | Appropriate legal interventions; CBT* and focused psychotherapies aimed at such areas as abandoning love, accepting loss, confronting misperceptions |
| The conviction that the stalker is right to engage in stalking | Enhancing victim empathy; confronting false attributions using CBT |
| The refusal to engage in any therapy, or conform to legally imposed restrictions on access to the victim | Ultimately confronting stalker with consequences (e.g. through breaching parole, referring back to court, etc.); employing motivational interviewing strategies to assist the stalker to appreciate the need for intervention |
| Social incompetence | Social skills training, therapies aimed at enhancing self-efficacy |
| Paraphilia | Sex offender program incorporating CBT with or without pharmacotherapy, as indicated |
| Future hazards | |
| Likely future contact with the victim | Every effort should be made to enforce a total ban on direct contact or direct communications |
| Lack of a feasible set of plans for avoiding a recurrence of stalking | Ensure structured plan around avoiding provocations and using protections against stalking; CBT to assist the stalker to overcome the compulsionto stalk |
| The underlying precipitants remain unresolved | Focused psychotherapy aimed at the areas identified in the formulation; social skills training for the inept; assistance abandoning the relationship; the treatment of paraphilias using CBT with or without pharmacotherapy, as indicated |
| Continuing instability to obtain residence and/or employment | Assistance obtaining housing; career counseling and active employment rehabilitation as indicated and appropriate |
| Continuing social isolation | Use of clubs, day centers, recreational counseling, domestic pets |
| Likely low level of compliance with legal restraints on contact with victim | Ensure knowledge of consequences of breaches and never collude, implicitly or explicitly, with avoiding those consequences |
| Likely low level of cooperation with any treatment program | Use of compulsory community treatment orders either imposed by court or as part of mental health legislation |
* CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy.