• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tony White

Psychologist

  • Home
  • Profile
    • Professional History
    • Professional Services
    • About Me
    • Training & Work Background
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blogs
  • Monograph Series
  • Home
  • Profile
    • Professional History
    • Professional Services
    • About Me
    • Training & Work Background
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blogs
  • Monograph Series

The prison psychotherapist

Never a dull moment when working in a prison and great training for one’s diagnostic skills of some quite unusual forms of psychopathology.

January 3, 2017 //  by Tony White//  Leave a Comment

I had a conversation last week with a fellow psychotherapist who I have known for many years and we meet up now and then to ‘chew the fat’ as they say. But an exchange happened in our chat that has stayed with me. I was talking about my experiences of working in prison and I said that I had liked working there. She asked why and I said a few things and then I said:

“It was exciting. It’s an exciting place to work as there is always the threat of violence in the air.”

She replied:

“That’s the exact reason most psychotherapists don’t want to work there.”

Her response kind of surprised me a bit. I didn’t expect it and I have remembered it. I wondered what it meant about me and so forth. It is true. I worked in a male adult prison and assaults did occur. There were no murders whilst I was there but assaults did occur on at least a semi regular basis. You had to always be alert for that and I found that exciting. I have also subsequently wondered if this has got anything to do with my liking for skulls as I have no idea where that came from and what that is about.

ciggie-clown

For a psychotherapist however a prison is like the candy store of psychopathology. It is the ‘Toys-r-us” of the psychoses and neuroses. If you ever want to study abnormal psychology go and work in a prison. In there you see it all from the commonplace like anxiety and depression to the unusual conditions like pica, hebephrenia, sexual sadism and multiple personality disorder (MPD). At least these are some I came across that I rarely see in my usual practice.

Also you have a captive client base in a prison as they aren’t going anywhere for a long time. They usually want to come and talk with you even if they feel it is not assisting all that much because it’s better than going to work or sitting in your cell twiddling your thumbs. If you are a pretty female therapist then you will always have a waiting list of clients. There is an opportunity to get to know some of these people very well.

I recall one guy that was brought to me because he was costing the prison money. They wanted him ‘fixed up’ because they kept having to give him new blankets. He had a habit of eating the ones he already had (pica). There was also a couple of MPD that I diagnosed. In my view they were true MPD which is interesting as it is a very rare condition. About 10 to 15 years ago MPD got popularised and all of a sudden everyone had it. I remember watching Oprah one day and she had a woman on who had written a book about her self and her 21 personalities and she was claiming she was MPD. That is not MPD so unfortunately the term fell into disrepute for some time because of this sensationalisation.

tatts

Tattooing in prison is illegal but it is rampant. “Prison tatts” are usually a badge of honour. With one man who was a well known prison tattooist the guards never could find the needle he was using. He had kept it secreted up his nose for a couple of years.

 

 

 

There was one guy who used to be in the army and he had two personalities that could switch between each other and not recall each other. However he had marital problems and his wife was going to leave him if he didn’t change when he got out. He would just disappear for a few weeks at a time. When he finally came home she asked him where he had been and he couldn’t tell her. He had no recollection but she thought he was lying and had another women somewhere. I told him I thought he had MPD, he told his wife this and then she told him to tell me that she was so happy and that I had saved their marriage. It made sense to her now. She apparently wanted to give me a gift of some kind but staff can never accept gifts from prisoners or their associates.

The other thing I noted was I expected to be diagnosing anti social personalities more than I did. However I made more diagnoses of narcissistic personality instead. This surprised me as logically it is not what one would expect. However from what I saw it is the narcissistic personality that is more likely to end up in the prison system.

I also got adept at diagnosing schizophrenia. I had the training and authority to ‘form’ some one as it was said. Under the Mental Health Act I could have a prisoner removed from the prison and placed in a locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. This is a powerful piece of legislation as there are very few ways a prisoner can leave a prison before completing their sentence, and this was one such way. It got known amongst the prison population that I could do this and I started to get all these inmates coming to see me with schizophrenic symptoms. I had to diagnose which were real and which were fake presentations and some of them were quite convincing. It is much nicer to do your prison time in a hospital than it is in a prison and they get to have sex with women for a change.

Never a dull moment when working in a prison and great training for one’s diagnostic skills of some quite unusual forms of psychopathology.

Category: counselling, PsychotherapyTag: depression, prison, psychotherapy

Previous Post: « Process for bereavement in suicide of a loved one
Next Post: Birth order and personality »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Website Re-build

The website is being rebuilt at the moment. Thank you for your patience and many apologies for any inconvenience.

Recent Posts

  • Deconfusion of the Child ego state
  • Deconfusion of the Child ego state
  • How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Consent and power in relationships.
  • Silence and the unconscious – Part 2
  • Silence and the unconscious
  • Silence in psychotherapy
  • Permission and redecision
  • Mature love, immature love and the teenager
  • Embrace the homeless
  • Psychology of the court process
  • Psychic organs to ego states
  • Regression – defence mechanism & natural human process
  • Two types or levels of life script change
  • Identification – Post 2
  • Identification – Post 1
  • Self control. Therapeutic implications
  • Adult ego state strengthening – Post 4
  • Adult ego state strengthening – Post 3
  • Adult ego state strengthening – post 2

Recent Comments

  • Irina on Social development – History taking
  • Joseph on How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Kahless on The Demon sub personality (Aka Lillith)
  • Kahless on How I became a child psychotherapist
  • Kahless on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Tony White on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Kahless on Consent and power in relationships.
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious – Part 2
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious
  • Kahless on Silence and the unconscious

Blog Archive

  • December 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • August 2013

Copyright © 2023 · Mai Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in