ABSTRACT
The more patients empty their minds of painful memories, the more staff member’s minds and case notes are filled with them. Ultimately, the combined burden of remembering and the unrelenting pressure from patients to forget affects staff members and teams. At HMP Holloway, many of the women incarcerated had suffered the unthinkable, and had consequently committed unthinking actions. Painful early experiences of abuse and neglect had destroyed the very capacity to think. Distrust, suspicion and fear pervaded the minds of many within the group. In presenting “Queen Lizzie”, the name this woman gave herself, this chapter illustrates how these two fundamental principles of forensic therapy – looking for meaning and working collaboratively – come together to hold both the team and the patient through the difficult process of treatment. It discusses how the institution and the clinicians were able at times to think about our patient and to tolerate her projections.
