ABSTRACT
The relentless challenges of therapeutic work in forensic and secure settings promote chronic states of anxiety and deprivation. These feelings can provide fertile ground for the development of envy and intense rivalries between clinical teams, as individuals and groups seek to allay anxieties by aggrandising their own work and disparaging the work of others. Therapists working in prisons have to navigate a particular set of unique challenges, working in an environment that is anathema to the task of psychotherapy. There is no anonymity; for the client it is common knowledge that they are in therapy, as is the identity of their therapist. The essential task for the therapist is to recognise the presence and function of these polarities, to make meaning of them and then to find a resolution, or at least a compromise that inevitably demands occupying some space in between these two points.
