Forensic CBT: A Handbook for Clinical Practice

“I very much enjoyed reading this book; it contains excellent chapters, and demonstrates the advances that have been made in recent years in the understanding and treatment of offenders. There is no doubt that this book will be of immense interest and use to practitioners. The book is very informative of what is currently available for treating offenders and includes user friendly forms, worksheets, and examples of case histories, which will aid the practitioner. The book offers hope to practitioners who have to deal with challenging offenders, most of whom lack motivation to change. In short, I found reading this book fascinating and inspirational.”
―Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2014

"This book should be considered a must read for anyone who works anywhere in the corrections system, (local, state, and/or federal). Whether you are working with pretrial incarcerated offenders in a jail, convicted offenders in a prison, probation, parole, half-way house and/or community supervision, this book will offer you numerous practical worksheets and handouts and a set of new tools that will make you more effective and successful with the people in your care and supervision."
―Gustavo R. Grodnitzky, Psychologist and Consultant, Amazon.com

Forensic CBT offers hope in its tone and content and inspiration… and describes advances in recent years in understanding and treatment of offenders… this superb collection strikes the right balance between scholarship and practical application… The book is a must-have. Whether you want to learn, teach, bring yourself up to date, reinvigorate your strategies and techniques, or just add new levels of understanding, this book should be in your library.
―John Gannon, Ph.D., International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

Forensic CBT: A Handbook for Clinical Practice is a superb collection that will be of immense value to practitioners who work with this challenging group of people. Leading contributors from the CBT approaches have written excellent chapters that will be immediately helpful, striking just the right balance between scholarship and practical application. There is an awareness of the specific challenges in working with offenders--- distrust, lack of motivation, history of problems, lack of social support, stigmatization---and, importantly, how to overcome them. I highly recommend this important volume to anyone working in the forensic area.
―Professor Robert L. Leahy, Director, American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, NYC.

This handbook is long overdue as it fills a glaring void in forensic and correctional treatment. With its application of CBT to an array of offenders and their conditions, it elucidates the “forgotten R” (responsivity) in the RNR model of effective correctional intervention.
―Dr Stephen Wormith, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Incisive, comprehensive, scholarly, and practical - Tafrate and Mitchell’s Forensic CBT is an impressive body of work, with contributions from leaders in the field integrating innovations in applied research and clinical practice for cognitive behavioral approaches with forensic clientele.
―Professor Mark Olver, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

With the current correctional population in the United States approaching 2 million―and a probation population of more than 5 million―there is an increasing demand for effective behavioral and emotional health services from forensic practitioners. Forensic CBT: A Handbook for Clinical Practice represents the first authoritative resource on the utilization of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) strategies and techniques for a wide variety of offender clients.

Contributions from leading experts in the major schools of CBT offer practical guidance on the treatment of antisocial personality patterns, anger, interpersonal violence, substance abuse, and sexual aggression. This practical guidance is supplemented by an assortment of worksheets, handouts, and exercises for practitioners to use with their clients. Coverage is also included on the use of modified CBT strategies for female, juvenile, and culturally diverse forensic populations; as well as emerging areas of forensic practices. Forensic treatment is presented from a wide spectrum of CBT approaches including Beck and Ellis, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Schema Focused Therapy, and criminal thinking models. Forensic CBT is an invaluable resource for practitioners working with juvenile and adult offenders in various criminal justice settings, both within institutions and in the community.

Raymond Chip Tafrate is a licensed psychologist and Professor and Chairperson of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at Central Connecticut State University. His most recent books are Anger Management for Everyone (2009) and Understanding Anger Disorders (2006).

Damon Mitchell is a licensed psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Central Connecticut State University. His research has been published in a variety of psychology and criminal justice journals including International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, Federal Probation, Journal of Sex Research, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.