A major problem in developing an adequate theory of the sexual offense process is the heterogeneity of offenders. Lack of a clear understanding of how and why people sexually offend against children hinders development of effective interventions for those individuals. The article critically reviews some attempts to provide a reliable and valid classification system for child molesters and considers the impact of such systems on structuring interventions to meet the differing needs of that client group. The article suggests that one way to address the shortcomings of the research into classifying child molesters would be to use process-driven taxonomies. For example, a self-regulation model can subsume different types of offending and provide a coherent conceptual framework for the self-management focus of cognitive-behavioral therapy with sex offenders. In addition, such a classification system will have a number of implications for predicting recidivism and assessing risk. Tables, figures, references