Cognitive-behavioral interventions represent the treatment of choice for sex offenders. Relapse prevention was adapted from the addiction field and is the most common application of the cognitive-behavioral methodology. The relapse prevention model teaches offenders to deconstruct their sex offense into its component parts, such as thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and triggers. The sex offender is challenged to identify all internal and external factors involved in the original offending process and is then supported in determining strategies to effectively reduce the salience of triggering cues and to avoid or manage situations that may lead to re-offending. The dominant therapeutic philosophy of the relapse prevention model involves the mastery of skills and the development of control over arousal. The relapse prevention model of intervention is a useful strategy but it is not sufficient for the long-term maintenance of change. As an alternative, a resiliency-focused intervention is suggested that combines relapse prevention strategies with a new dominant life story approach. A resiliency-focused intervention attempts to balance all parts of the person and to help offenders make successful long-term change. Other approaches to reintegrating sex offenders into society are examined, including the transtheoretical model of change, the Aboriginal medicine wheel, and the narrative approach. According to the transtheoretical model of change, there are five distinct stages that people must progress through when making any form of significant personal change--pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. The Aboriginal medicine wheel provides a positive goal for change by describing what a healthy person can achieve and by defining the goal for long-term change as personal balance. The narrative approach provides a web of meaning and connectedness between to reassure people that things happen as they do because they take place in a moral universe. 15 references