ABSTRACT
Psychotherapy provides a relationship in which to explore the impact of loss and sees potential creativity in the process of working through the difficult feelings evoked by mourning. Feelings of bereavement, abandonment, fury and violence are integral to therapeutic work. The ambiguous future for the officers, healthcare staff and the prisoners seemed to lead to a kind of “laissez-faire” attitude by some of the professionals whose sense of purpose within the prison had been shaken. Prisons have clear physical boundaries, demonstrated explicitly through the perimeter wall and razor wire. Psychotherapy in prisons entails reflecting on boundaries and acknowledging the boundaries that have been violated in the lives of the women. Therapy sets clear boundaries in order to give the patient an experience of containment. Prisoners can develop a love–hate relationship with the institution. Patients may consciously or unconsciously sabotage their right to freedom so that they can return to prison.
