Forensic Psychiatry

doi:10.1007/978-1-59745-006-5

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…But in this very pursuit for social justice, we must also understand that there are mysteries behind every story, and ineffable layers beyond every word we share to re-call our moments of lived experience, suffering, reconciliation and transformation: "…even those who live in the most dire circumstances possess a complex and oftentimes contradictory humanity and subjectivity that is never adequately glimpsed by viewing them as victims or, on the other hand, as superhuman agents" (Gordon, 2008: p. 4). As I began to write about my own experience working as a security guard in a local hospital, I knew that the intense emotions and politics I felt come undone as I recalled the lives of both myself and my former security colleagues were inspired by the "fact" that they all, in some capacity during the brief or seemingly infinite moments when I know and remember them, expressed to me a desire to witness the end of gendered healthcare violence, discrimination, subordination and coercion against mental health patients and themselves (see also Holmes, Rudge, Perron, & St-Pierre, 2012;Mason, 2006). In these moments of self-examination, pity, and trauma, I remember the words of renowned cultural criminologist and ethnographer Jeff Ferrell (1998: p. 24).…”

Section: Reflections On Fictional/non-fictional Representations Of Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Telling Masculine Tales”: Tracing My Embodied Experience as a Psychiatric Ward Security Guard through Ethnographic Narrative Writing

Johnston¹

2014

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This article unfolds the culture of hyper-masculinity I witnessed and ultimately rejected during my sixteen-month career working as a private security officer in an Ottawa hospital. I draw on two ethnographic narratives to "distribute", in Rancièrian terms, the embodied and emotional experiences that accompanied my struggles to achieve hegemonic masculine status, and resist military-like hierarchies inside an institutional setting. Such a creative methodological exercise allows researchers to freely explore their delicate, complex and messy feelings that may otherwise be ethically suppressed or co-opted through less corporeal representations of academic writing. Moreover, by revealing the sensitive and coercive interactions that steered my gendered relationships with psychiatric patients, ward nurses and other security agents, I demonstrate how embodied research can transform our uncritical heteronormative positions on masculinity and violence, as well as contest the unequal, gendered and medicalized judgments that are imposed on incarcerated mental health patients.

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Section: Reflections On Fictional/non-fictional Representations Of Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Telling Masculine Tales”: Tracing My Embodied Experience as a Psychiatric Ward Security Guard through Ethnographic Narrative Writing

Johnston¹

2014

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Infrahumanisation: the nurse versus the guard phenomenon in forensic psychiatric practice in Zimbabwe

Dube-Mawerewere

2015

Journal of Forensic Practice

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explicate the lived experiences of nurses involved in rehabilitation of forensic psychiatric patients in special institutions in Zimbabwe. Design/methodology/approach – The study used the grounded theory approach utilising a mixed sequential dominant status design (QUAL/Quant). Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual canon of field, habitus and capital was used as a theoretical point of departure by the research study. Confirmatory retrospective document review of 119 patients’ files was also done to substantiate the nurses’ experiences. Theoretical sampling of relatives was also done. Findings – Findings and results revealed that nurses seemed to experience infrahumanisation, a subtler form of dehumanisation. The infrahumanisation was embodied in the unpleasant context in which nurses were expected to perform their mandate of championing rehabilitation of forensic psychiatric patients. The guards who represented the prison system seemed to possess all forms of capital in the prison system (where special institutions are housed): the prison cultural capital, social capital and economic capital. This capital seemed to represent symbolic power over the disillusioned and voiceless nurses. Guards attended to and discussed patients and relatives issues instead of nurses. This form of misrecognition of the nurses culminated in dominance and reproduction of the interests of the prison system which underlined the established order of realities in the rehabilitation of forensic psychiatric patients in special institutions at the time of the study. The nurses’ lived experience was confirmed by theoretically sampled by relatives of forensic psychiatric patients who also participated in the research study. Nurses’ powerlessness was also reflected in the patients’ files in which in which care was largely not documented. Research limitations/implications – The study focused on the nurses experiences related to rehabilitation of male forensic psychiatric patients and not on female forensic psychiatric patients because there were important variables in the two groups that were not homogenous. For the little documentation that was done, there was also a tendency nurses to document negative rather than positive events and trends. The documents/files of patients had therefore a negative bias which was a major limitation to this study. Practical implications – There is a need for major revision of the revision of the role of the nurse in the forensic psychiatric setting. Collaboration as academia, practice, professional organisations and regulatory bodies would foster a nurse led therapeutic jurisprudence in the future of rehabilitation of forensic psychiatric patients in Zimbabwe. Social implications – There is a need for major revision of the revision of the role of the nurse in the forensic psychiatric setting. Originality/value – This is the first description of the position of nurses’ seconded to special institutions in Zimbabwe and will go a long way in realigning conflictual policy documents guiding care of forensic psychiatric patients in special institutions.

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The development of recovery based nursing in a high-security hospital: nurturance and safe spaces in a dangerous world?

Chandley

Cromar-Hayes

Mercer

et al. 2014

Mental Health and Social Inclusion

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to derive from an on-going, innovative, project to explore the concept, and application, of “recovery” in the care and clinical management of patients detained in one UK high-security hospital. Design/methodology/approach – Utilising a qualitative, action research, methodology the aim was to involve forensic mental health nurses in a collaborative, client-centred approach to identification and resolution of dilemmas in the process of planning care for offender-patients. Findings – In this context the authors identify constraints and contradictions involved in employing recovery principles in institutions critics refer to as part of the disciplinary apparatus of psychiatric and social control; where the taken for granted lives, and relations, of an incarcerated population are measured by the calendar, not the clock. Research limitations/implications – Protective practices remain highly relevant in high-secure practice. Safety, an important value for all can by and large be achieved through recovery approaches. The humanistic elements of recovery can offer up safe and useful methods of deploying the mental health nurse on the ward. Many nurses have the prerequisite approach but there remains a wide scope to enhance those skills. Many see the approach as axiomatic though nurse education often prepares nurses with a biomedical view of the ward. Practical implications – Currently, philosophical tenets of recovery are enshrined in contemporary health policy and professional directives but, as yet, have not been translated into high-secure settings. Drawing on preliminary findings, attention is given to the value of socially situated approaches in challenging historic dominance of a medical model. Social implications – It is concluded that recovery could be a forerunner of reforms necessary for the continued relevance of high-secure care into the twenty-first century. Originality/value – This research is located in high-secure setting. The social situation is marked by the extent of the isolation involved. A value is in this situation. First it is akin to the isolation of the tribe utilised by many anthropologists for their ability to adopt the “social laboratory” status to test out theories of behaviour in industrial society. The authors urge others to utilise this research in this way. Second, the situation represents the locus of so many of societies dilemmas, paradoxes and fears that moral issues morph from what is the mundane in wider society. In this way humanistic approaches are tested via action research with nurses in some rigouous ways.

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Forensic Psychiatry

Cited by 5 publications

References 5 publications

“Telling Masculine Tales”: Tracing My Embodied Experience as a Psychiatric Ward Security Guard through Ethnographic Narrative Writing

“Telling Masculine Tales”: Tracing My Embodied Experience as a Psychiatric Ward Security Guard through Ethnographic Narrative Writing

Infrahumanisation: the nurse versus the guard phenomenon in forensic psychiatric practice in Zimbabwe

The development of recovery based nursing in a high-security hospital: nurturance and safe spaces in a dangerous world?

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