As a forensic psychiatrist I have learned that helping prisoners confront their offences is best for them, and for society
Throughout my career, people have asked me why I do what I do. I’m a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist; I’ve spent three decades working with people in prisons and secure hospitals who have committed violent offences. I give therapy to those struggling to articulate unspeakable things and come to terms with their new identities as offenders.
This means listening without judgment to things that in any other circumstances would produce horror and revulsion. For example, a man’s account of how he killed four people and severed one of their heads to make disposal of the body more manageable, or a woman’s insistence that the victim she stabbed was possessed by a demon. A man who insists his ex-lover made him jealous relates how he strangled her; a young mother blames “useless” medical professionals for her baby’s multiple trips to the emergency room. Why should we help “those people”? Aren’t our resources better spent helping their victims or other law-abiding citizens who need treatment? Such questions reveal a great deal about the society we have created.
