Relating for a Change
A 1980s Micro-project Introducing Therapeutic Community Practice
within a Prison
Dr Les Spencer, Total Care Foundation Inc.
Abstract
This paper briefly introduces a 1980s Micro-project in
Australia set-up by Therapeutic Community pioneer
Dr Neville Yeomans exploring the starting of Therapeutic Community based psychotherapy practice within a Prison. Processes
used in setting up this Micro-project are introduced as well as theoretical, practical, and clinical perspectives. It includes
references to papers on precursors and outcomes. Yeomans’ stacked and juxtaposed
every micro-aspect of his Way with transforming possibilities. Maxwell Jones
commenting on this wrote, ‘given such a carefully worked-out structure,
evolution is an inevitable consequence’. The Micro-project’s mentor’s successful entry
into the prison population is outlined. Twelve sexual offenders invited to
participate in the Micro-project checked with jail standover types and received
the go-ahead. The paper details the framing assumptions
set up by Yeomans which influenced the participant prisoners to draft a wise
and potent behavioural contract governing the running of the group. Potent
aspects that contributed to the Micro-project commencing and running
effectively are specified. The Micro-project’s positive affects throughout
prison population are outlined including the total prison population joining the mini-project participants’ in
reaching consensus, and then preparing, signing, and submitting a wise
influential submission to a state government inquiry into compassionate leave.
This paper introduces a 1980s Micro-project in Australia
set-up by Therapeutic Community pioneer
Dr Neville Yeomans exploring the starting of Therapeutic Community based psychotherapy practice within a Prison. It may
inform start-ups of Therapeutic Community Units in
Prisons and innovation in existing Prison TC Programs. It includes glimpses of underlying theoretical, practical, and clinical perspectives, and
includes references to detailed specifying of precursors of these perspectives in
the 1960s, and the outcomes of using evolving community as a form of
transforming process. At the time of helping to set up this TC Micro-project,
I was being mentored by Dr Neville Yeomans who is recognised as one of the
early pioneers of TC along with Maxwell Jones and Harry Wilmer and others (Spencer, 2005b, Radio
TC International, 2009). In 1959,
Yeomans was the founder and first director of Fraser House Therapeutic
Community in North Ryde, NSW, Australia (Spencer, 2005a; Spencer, 2013a). I first met Yeomans when he was co-facilitating
a transformative use of sensory submodalities Workshop beside Sydney Harbour in
1985. During a chat over this Workshop lunch break he concluded that I may be
the person he had been looking for since the mid 1960s to do a PhD on his life
work. I did commence that PhD in 1998 and completed it in 2005. That 1985
lunchtime chat started 15 years of mentoring by Yeomans and co-learning with
him to his death in 2000 (Carroll, 2000).
For context, Yeomans’ academic study included
anthropology, biology, history, law, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and
sociology, alongside indigenous cultural healing artistry and futures studies. As
theoretical background, Yeomans had been pioneering the use of social processes
including community supported therapeutic use of
life narrative in community psychiatry. This paper uses the life
narrative form in resonance with Yeomans’ Way (Spencer, 2005a; Spencer, 2013a).
Yeomans was aware of psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan’s understandings relating to the formative
significance of the network of relationships in which people are enmeshed (Sullivan,
1953). Sullivan developed a
theory of psychiatry based upon interpersonal relationships where problematic
cultural forces are deemed to be largely responsible for social illness and mental
illness. With ‘evolving relationships’ as theme, the inherently unfinished and tentative
relational knowing and the inter-subjective is the foci (the German ‘Kennen’)
not the definitive form of knowing that aids prediction and control (the German
‘Wissen’) (Pelz,
1974’ Pelz 1975).
Sullivan’s focus was on the ‘interactional’, not the ‘intrapsychic’. Yeomans’
processes in community psychiatry assumed a social onset of mental illness and relational
social processes of a differing kind for transforming to psycho-social-emotional
wellbeing. To an outsider, it may seem that Yeomans was engaging in naive simplicity.
The seemingly simple was potent. Yeomans Way involved stacking and juxtaposing
every micro aspect of structure and process with transforming possibilities. Maxwell
Jones, a UK TC pioneer commenting on Yeomans Way wrote, ‘given such a carefully worked-out
structure, evolution is an inevitable consequence’ (Clark and Yeomans, 1969,
vi). Some examples,
every aspect of the process and practical action was to be:
o contributing to evolving the size and
richness of participants’ networks
o Increasing agency
o Evolving the full spectrum of the self (example:
self respect, self worth, self image, self confidence, self identity)
o Evolving and enriching social relating
o Increasing general and role specific
stocks of culturally fitting knowledge and competences, and ways to use these
competences that are functional in context (Spencer, 2017, p. 130-134)
Like Sullivan, Yeomans was evolving
community psychiatry at three levels:
o Individual and community care,
o Prevention, and
o Social transforming
The Evolving of the TC
Micro-project
In 1988, a psychologist acquaintance of Yeomans wanted to
receive mentoring in how to add group psychotherapy to her individual
psychotherapy in Prison work towards the possibility of setting up a prison TC
Unit in the future. She knew Yeomans as they had both studied psychology
together, and she also knew that Yeomans had been the founding director of the
Fraser House Therapeutic Community where residents were received from prisons
as well as psychiatric hospitals. She had asked Yeomans for the near impossible
request - did he know a very competent mentor in group psychotherapy who would
be prepared to volunteer to attend and support the jail psychologist evolve and
implement a 16 month experimental program for sexual offenders based upon
therapeutic community principles. Yeomans invited me to pioneer this small
informal TC Micro-project in an Australian Prison. The Micro-project members
would be still be mingling with the other prisoners in the cells and other
areas, though together in a secure place whilst engaged in therapeutic
community practice. This approximated Fraser House where most residents
returned to their homes for the weekend and had to learn to cope back home. In
the prison Micro-project the proposed
participants would also have to learn to cope with their everyday circumstances
among the wider jail population including fitting in and complying with staff.
I was very keen to increase my competences, I had arranged
private funding. I could weave this voluntary work into my preparatory field research
towards doing a PhD, and it would prepare me for engaging later with
‘perpetrators’ in SE Asia (Psychnet Report, 2004). As this would be an informal project agreed to by the Jail governor,
and with me being a volunteer we would have considerable freedom to innovate. I
agreed to participate. Yeomans agreed to mentor me and the jail psychologist
for the sixteen months of the Project.
TC Micro-project Framing
This proposed TC Micro-project was potentially going to be a secure
enclave within the secure prison. The Governor required that a senior would be
present in the space for security and be a non-participant observer reporting
back to the Governor. The Governor could cancel the Micro-project at anytime.
He left the processes to be used to be decided by the jail psychologist.
The jail psychologist had a series of
planning sessions with Yeomans and I became involved in these. It was decided
that all involved in the Micro-project could explore being in the process of changing all manner of integrated
behavioural patterns from ‘Jail mode’ across to the ‘TC Micro-project mode’.
Yeomans introduced a number of guiding
principles and assumptions for this Micro Project - those that had worked well
at Fraser House:
o Nothing would happen unless the Participants
in the Micro-project wanted it to happen
o Participants in the Micro-project knew
what was missing in their lives and they would have the say in what happens
during our time together within an ‘increasing individual and group wellbeing’
framing
o
‘Community’ of a very
particular kind would be the therapy; the jail psychologist and her mentor would
be a resource person they could call upon
o
Participants in the
Micro-project would be getting on with their own change work of their own
making. Nothing would be imposed
All of this framing was discussed with
the prisoners individually in the jail psychologist therapy sessions and then
the proposed participants were told of the others potentially involved and they
were invited to discuss this endeavour with each other. In this they would all potentially
increase their relating and cooperating with each other in exploring how they
may begin being creators of their own reality within the confines of the prison.
Entry into the Prison
Population
Because of the layout and processes of the prison it
would be inevitable that I would have some time mingling with the wider prison
population and staff. Yeomans, the jail
psychologist, and I discussed my entry into the prison system. At Yeomans’
suggestion my first entry inside this prison and mingling with residents and
staff was accompanying the jail psychologist and the Governor who introduced me
to the total population at the same time during the midday meal. The Governor
introduced me to residents and all staff - replicating Fraser House Big Group (Spencer,
2013a, p. 223-248). The Governor said I was a volunteer helping the jail
psychologist for some months and that I would be having a discussion with one
of the residents immediately after lunch. This resident was not going to be in
the TC Micro-project. This manner of introduction was also teed up by Yeomans.
The resident concerned was the most detested person in the prison. He was told
to finish his meal and go with me and two officers to his cell.
The two officers waited outside the open door and out of
sight. I was given an emergency buzzer I could press if I was at risk. I went
in with him and within a few minutes he was sobbing for joy. Someone was
setting aside his criminality and wanting to relate with him as a person - not
as a loathsome thing. Many staff and prisoners saw that he came out with tears
of appreciation. Some identified with him for the first time. ‘I too want to be
treated as more than a thing’. Even a person who described himself as ‘a nobody
from nowhere’ sensed this as significant. ‘We’re all people’. This was the
icebreaker. I was seen as different; a breath of fresh air.
On my first day, on three separate occasions I had a
thorough briefing by prison heavies:
This is how this place works. We want no trouble.
In here we do it easy! Do these things and don’t do these other things and you
won’t have trouble and your trouble will not cause us trouble. Okay?
From this start I sensed that there was amongst the
residents a well-evolved sub-culture that officialdom did not see or
appreciate. This sub-culture served the residents well. At the heart of this
culture was self interest in mutual care. Linked to this was an oft repeated
mantra- ‘here you either do it easy or do it hard’. This was linked to what
could be termed ‘positive renunciation’ – where you rise above what you
renounce. They never used this term. It was expressed as acceptance:
Keep your focus where you are - here inside prison. Live
here and don’t continually want to be on the outside. Do this and it becomes
easier. If you keep focusing on life outside the prison and wanting to be
outside, you do it hard. Minutes before an outside phone call have your focus
on the outside world and shift to being fully present in the outside. Then when
the call is finished, switch focus and live in the moment - being fully present
inside this prison and making the most of it.
Allied with this I noted that in a completely
self-organising way new arrivals would be briefed about ‘how this place works’.
The foregoing are glimpses of a well-evolved sub-culture embracing exercising
their own agency in maintaining social relating sustaining a quality of life,
and this within an official system that systematically sets out to strip the
prisoners of agency (Goffman, 1961; Spencer, 2013a. Appendix 5).
Forming the TC Micro-Project
Group
There were two types of prisoners that made up most in
this facility - sexual offenders and drug offenders. Both groups would be at
severe risk in other jails. Neither group liked the others. The jail heavies
were typically drug contract-killer types. Twelve residents who were inside for
sexual offences were invited to participate in group psychotherapy three times
a week for 90 minutes in the evening. All of these invitees were receiving
individual psychotherapy from the jail psychologist. As a group they checked
with jail standover types as to what they thought about whether it was okay to
attend and they received the go ahead.
If you can get parole earlier on less onerous conditions,
then go for it.
As a group they decided to proceed. We held the group in
a locked secure indoor basketball court within the prison precinct with a
senior present in the far corner for security. The participants had requested a
large writing pad on an easel and some marker pens and we had that ready. When
we all had arrived they requested that before they made a final agreement to
participate they had collectively decided to explore in our presence and between
themselves whether they could compose and agree upon a set of clauses in a
behavioural contract. This they did, though none had ever done anything like
this before. We had in no way hinted at anything like this. Unaided they
evolved and all agreed on using the following contract:
o We only use themes that we residents come up with and
consensually agree upon
o A theme is to stop if any resident requests it
o Nothing about anyone’s criminality or outside life is to
be mentioned (the basis of their thinking – ‘today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy’)
o What comes up in the group stays in the group
o
The jail psychologist and her mentor have to
sign the contract as well
o If you sign, be very serious about your commitment as if
anyone withdraws from the group (unless they are leaving the prison) the whole
group ceases completely. You leave the group and lots of others will be very
angry that they are not having it continue.
This last clause powerfully sets up the certainty of
massive withdrawal consequences. This recognising that ‘actions have
consequences’ is in the context that all of these participants had completely
failed to recognise that actions have consequences in committing the acts that
put them in jail. During the rollout of this Project it became very apparent
that all of these participants had little or no sense of when they were in
personal danger. (Later they choose the theme of ‘recognising personal danger’
as one of their themes).
The prisoner participants drafted this contract unaided! All signed the contract and no one left the
group. Already the participants have entered into the frame (Goffman, 1974) that
we had outlined as well as entering aspects of the ‘Micro-project’ mode (in
contrast to the ‘Jail Mode’)’ and we have only been going 35 minutes!
o Participants are cooperating and relating well with each
other;
o They have an enhancing awareness of context and changes
in context and are being guided by context
o They have commenced networking with each other both
inside and outside the TC Group meeting
o They have been taking steps ensuring nothing happens
unless participants want it to happen and mutually agree that it happens
o Participants are identifying with what is missing in
their lives and taking their own action to be able, with support of their
choosing, to experience what is missing
o Every aspect of the processes that they
are evolving is contributing to expanding and enriching the participants’
networking
o They are tapping into their own and
their collective potentials and beginning to realise that the wisdom is in the
group – together we can do things that we would have little chance of doing
alone
o They are engaging in peer to peer mutual
support
o
They are already underway
in:
o evolving processes and practical action
increasing their agency – their sense of and experience of ‘can do’ and ‘can do
well’
o They were sensing themselves and as a
small collective as different – sensing each other as the type of person that
differed from the typical types of prisoners – we reciprocate in doing this and
they do not – we choose what we do and how we do it and we engage in acts
guided by norms of our own making
o evolving the full spectrum of their
self; examples - evolving and enriching:
§ self identity
§ self worth
§ self respect
§ self image, and
§ self confidence
o Evaluating is a pervasively imbedded
aspect; participants are evaluating outcomes from moment-to-moment
o They are relationally acquiring
practical ways of increasing their general and role-specific stock of
culturally fitting knowledge and competences, and ways to use these competences
that are functionally fitting in context
o This is their group wherein they have the say as to what
happens
o They have us as resource people on their terms, and where
they receive from us what they collectively agree and while we may suggest
roles and processes, it is they that are doing the doing; the community is the
therapy in the therapeutic community
o They are highly valuing and recognising that this process
of their own making and sustaining is of very high value
o And all of this is happening ‘on the fly’ without them
having much if any awareness of the aspects mentioned in this list as they are
fully immersed in the flow of relational engaging. They have little insight. They
just know it all feels right and that they are very keen to continue
involvement.
.
The Jail Psychologist and I were both extremely pleased
with this start. From the outset, the prospective participants were told that
if this gets under way, together we would be creating and sustaining a
protected enclave wherein we could all explore discovering each other and more
fully discovering our self in the process of discovering possibilities for
living lives well together; where we could explore relating well and be
exploring our potentials. They had all taken this opportunity and ran with it.
Typically, the kinds of behaviours listed above are curtailed
by the traditional prison system. Nothing that we are doing is undermining
these participants’ complying with the wider prison protocols. The participants
seem to be very aware that this framing within the Micro-project applies strictly
and only within the TC enclave; the wider prison protocols are so massively
ongoingly oppressive. Outside of this enclave, the system exercises almost
total control of what and when they can and cannot do things. The above framing
within the Micro-project will also tend to inform the prisoners’ covert
protocol about ‘how this place works’ discussed above. It also holds promise to
subtly influence the wellbeing of the wider prison population and even the
staff. The various seniors attending the Group as non-participant observers
will potentially be subtly influenced by osmosis.
The details of themes chosen by the participants and some
of the outcomes during the sixteen months have been written up (Spencer, 2005a;
Spencer, 2005b Spencer, 2013a; Spencer, 2013b; Spencer, 2017; Spencer, 2019).
Involving the Total
Resident Population
After a time the changes in these twelve participants began
to have ripple-through affects on the balance of the prison population as well
as a discernible softening of the prison officers. A situation occurred that evolved
an opportunity to involve all of the residents in practical wisdom. There were
two instances where prisoners from other jails had reoffended while on
compassionate leave. A major newspaper ran a series of articles pushing to ban
all compassionate leave. The state government decided to appoint a retired
Supreme Court judge to conduct a public inquiry and called for written
submissions. This was raised in the Micro-project group and they decided to collaborate
jointly in preparing and putting in a submission to the inquiry.
The participants began to involve other prisoners not in the
Micro-project Group in preparing the submission and it took shape as a succinct
half page statement with a number of personal stories (micro life narratives) as
attachments. With encouragement from other prisoners, the person who had called
himself a ‘nobody from nowhere’ wrote one of these attached life stories. Various
drafts were made and ideas combined. With the Micro-project Participants and
then the other prisoners seeking permission from the Governor, the draft was
posted on the wall in the dining area ,and after a time, every resident in the
prison became involved - sexual as well as drug offenders. The final submission
was signed by EVERY resident including the most detested person. It
was a very compelling case for compassionate leave with safeguards, and making
the case that this continuance of compassionate leave was in everyone in
society’s best interests.
Having every prisoner sign as a unanimous community was
all the more significant given the typical disdain that the drug offenders and
the sexual offenders showed to each other. The Supreme Court judge made our
prison the very first place to visit in his hearings. He stated that a
unanimous submission was unique. He met the people who had written their
stories as attachments. The Judge asked to speak to the person signing ‘the
nobody from nowhere’ first. His final recommendations to the State government -
to continue compassionate leave with safeguards - had all of our group’s words
woven throughout his report. His report was read by one of the Micro-project participants to the whole prison community during the
midday meal and every time some words from the prisoners’ submission were read
out, the audience would applaud and cheer. The Governor knew the Judge’s Report
was going to be read out so he attended that muster and stayed for the reading.
Afterwards he spoke privately to the jail psychologist and
said, ‘
Slow down a bit. This place is supposed to be
unpleasant. You’re turning it into a holiday camp.
He said this with a smile on his face.
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