Secure Lives The Meaning and Importance of Culture in Secure Hospital Care

by Bartlett, Annie

• ISBN13: 9780191646621
• ISBN10: 0191646628
• Copyright: 2015-11-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Though institutional care for people suffering from mental illness was phased out in the last century, mentally disordered offenders remain the exception to this rule. The numbers detained in medium secure care have increased and new initiatives in high secure care have created specialist facilities for individuals thought to be particularly dangerous to other people. This means that the nature of institutional life, and in particular the balance between continuing detention for its own sake and care and treatment designed to allow for discharge to a more normal life in the community, should continue to pre-occupy us.

Secure Lives is a unique study of life in a high security hospital, based on original research material obtained in the mid 1990s. Compelling personal accounts from staff and patients, as well as case study material, illustrate the complex culture of a high security hospital. The book explores the complex relationship that exists between staff and patients, the social hierarchy, and life amongst potentially dangerous and mentally ill individuals. Though there are many texts on forensic psychiatry in practice, this book provides a first-hand account of life in an environment never seen by those outside its walls.

Author Biography

Annie Bartlett, Reader in Forensic Psychiatry, St George's, University of London, UK

Annie Bartlett is a Reader in Forensic Psychiatry at St George's, University of London. She is an experienced university teacher and researcher who has lectured extensively on aspects of the forensic mental health system. She has an MA in English from Cambridge University, and a Doctorate in Social Anthropology, also from Cambridge University. She has been a Consultant in Forensic Psychiatry for 15 years and currently works clinically in HMP Holloway and in CNWL Foundation Trust as Clinical Lead for Mental Health (Offender Care). She was previously Clinical Director of the SWL and St George's MHT Forensic Service and has worked as a forensic psychiatrist in open, community, low and medium secure hospital settings. Her research interests include social exclusion and mental health (with particular reference to women and sexual orientation) and the culture of secure institutions.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Some Abstract Nouns: Institutions, Culture, Crime and Madness
1. Institutions, Culture and the Culture of Institutions
2. Crime and Madness
Part 2: Methods and their Meaning
3. What We Actually Did and Why
4. Reflexivity: Who am I to Ask Questions?
Part 3: Power and Praxis: Who Is In Charge of the Ward?
5. Daily Life
6. What are the Mechanisms of Power?
7. Ward Life under the Microscope: the Maintenance of Power
Part 4: Culture and Change
8. Do Wards Have Cultures?
9. Culture on the Move: Resistance and Reality
Part 5: Thinking Ahead
10. Looking Back
11. Anthropology and the Individual: Knowing me, Knowing you
12. Secure Care