Investigator: Fiona Morrison

Supervisors: Michael Daffern, Stefan Luebbers, Flora Gilbert

Rationale and aims:

• This project aims to investigate whether aggressive scripts can be treated therapeutically, and whether treating aggressive scripts provides better outcomes for those who undertake the program.
• Furthermore, this study aims to further test methods of assessing aggressive scripts, and add to literature which investigates and ties together aggressive scripts and other related contexts.

Methodology:

• A review of the literature of terms related to aggressive scripts is to be conducted, and from this, a group treatment plan for violent offenders with aggressive scripts will be developed.
• The treatment program will be delivered to a group of violent offenders, and a control group (which provides a different therapeutic approach, such as emotion regulation therapy) will be used in order to determine whether the outcomes can be attributed to changes in aggressive script rehearsal.
• The collective influence on other measured outcomes (such as state anger, reoffending risk, depression, and anxiety for example) will be compared between the groups.