Applying the Good Lives and Self-Regulation Models to Sex Offender Treatment

A Practical Guide for Clinicians
By Pamela M. Yates, Ph.D., R.D.Psych; David Prescott, L.I.C.S.W.; & Tony Ward, Ph.D., DipClinPsyc.

A practical, common-sense guide written specifically for clinicians from the leading Good Lives Model experts, this book should be in the library of everyone who treats or manages sex offenders.

This is the first and only comprehensive guide to integrating the Good Lives and Self-Regulation models into a treatment program for people who have sexually abused. The authors present the two models as a combined program to help these individuals achieve two goals: building a lifestyle incompatible with offending and effectively managing risk.

This thorough, step-by-step guide first presents the fundamentals, continues with sections on assessment and treatment, and wraps up with post-treatment maintenance and supervision.

Watch the free Safer Talk webinar with Tony Ward!
In this webinar conversation, the developer of the Good Lives and Self-Regulation Models discusses their origins, development, implementation, and underlying theories. He will also address several areas of his more recent research, including the importance of deepening our understanding of risk and protective factors.


“Always ahead of the curve, Pamela Yates, David Prescott, and Tony Ward present us with a cogent roadmap for the future of sexual offender treatment. Clinicians will appreciate the practical guidelines and case examples while researchers will revel in the comprehensive empirical foundation. As a scientist-practitioner, it is wonderful to finally have everything I need available in one solid publication.”

Robin J. Wilson, Ph.D., ABPP, Clinical Director, Florida Civil Commitment Center and Professor, Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, Toronto


Watch Tony Ward’s short video introduction to the Good Lives Model and its use in treatment of people with sexual behavior problems.

Praise from the field


This book is an essential part of the library for any therapist working with sexual offenders.

Jill Levenson, Ph.D., LCSW, Fort Lauderdale, FL, co-author of The Road to Freedom


Individuals who are successful in life define their goals in terms of what they want to achieve, not what they want to avoid. This important book champions a forward-focused, positive, individualized intervention approach to working with individuals who engage in sexually abusive behavior. It is a cutting edge resource for treatment providers and supervision officers on how to help those they work with to lead a “good life” that is incompatible with sexual offending.

Robert J. McGrath, M.A., Clinical Director, Vermont Treatment Program for Sexual Abusers and co-author of Supervision of the Sex Offender, 2nd Edition.


About the Authors

Pamela M Yates, Ph.D. has worked as a clinician and researcher in various capacities with adults and youth, including sexual offenders, violent offenders, individuals with substance abuse problems, and victims of violence, and has developed accredited offender treatment programs. Her research and publications include offender rehabilitation, assessment and treatment of sexual offenders, program evaluation, risk assessment, treatment effectiveness, psychopathy, and sexual sadism. She has written extensively on the Self-Regulation and Good Lives Models of sexual offender intervention.


David Prescott, LICSW, editor at Safer Society Press, has authored numerous books and chapters in the areas of assessing and treating sexual violence and trauma. More than half of those works were published by Safer Society. David is a current Fellow and past president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. He is also the 2014 recipient of that organization’s Distinguished Contribution Award, one of only a handful of recipients. He is a Certified Trainer for the International Center for Clinical Excellence and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. He has lectured around the world and has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals. Most recently, he was the Clinical Services Development Director for the Becket Family of Services, USA.


Tony Ward, Ph.D., DipClinPsyc is currently Professor of Clinical Psychology and Head of Department at Victoria University of New Zealand. His research interests include offender cognition, reintegration and desistance, ethical issues in forensic psychology, and evolutionary approaches to understanding human behavior. He has authored over 280 academic publications and his latest book (co-authored with Richard Laws) is Desisting from Sex Offending: Alternatives to Throwing Away the Keys (Guilford Press, October, 2010).