The Locked up Living Podcast

Gerard Drennan brings restorative justice to the foreground, illuminated by his experience of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa.

Dr Gerard Drennan Ph.D. is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, who holds the post of Head of Psychology & Psychotherapy in the Behavioural & Developmental Psychiatric Operational Directorate of the South London & Maudsley Mental Health Foundation Trust. He is also an Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at Kings College London.Gerard qualified as a clinical psychologist in Cape Town.His doctoral research examined the practical and political role of language and interpreters in mental health practice in post-colonial, institutional settings.This research ran concurrently with the work of South African Truth and Reconciliation and was touched, as all South Africans were, by the restorative aspirations of that nation-building endeavour.Gerard has held clinical and leadership roles in forensic and offender mental health settings in London and Sussex for the past 20 years. This included a leadership role in developing the Millfield Unit, part of the Personality Disorder and DSPD project. He has published on the implementation of recovery-oriented practice and, since training in restorative justice conferencing in 2012, has worked and written on the place of restorative justice practices in mental health settings.

Justin Wiggan, sound artist, descibes the emotional power and universal relevance of his work

Our guest has been described as “one of the most important artists working across arts and health right now.  His ground-breaking work has huge potential for impact across life sciences and is a testament to the power of creativity in health and well-being”.
Anyone who has been inside a prison will have experienced the eerie silence when everyone is locked up and the cacophony of sound at other times. We may learn to neutralise those sounds but Justin shows how sound has beauty and meaning
 
Justin’s practice includes a range of media from sound, phonics, film, drawing, installation, interventions and performance and he’s collaborated with a wide range of individuals across medical, research and creative industries sectors.  His works have been exhibited nationally and internationally and he has described hisown aim as being to educate, share and engage people with sound and reconnect with their lives using sound art.
 
In addition to his artistic practice, Justin has extended his artistic practice to work with young people and community groups particularly those associated with increased vulnerability such as within palliative care and mental health.
 
Finally, Justin runs Glass Twin a company that use sound as a tool to promote mental well-being through developing soundscapes and he’s worked within hospices, prison and schools as well as with the emergency services and charities supporting people with mental health needs.   It’s within this capacity where Naomi came across Justin who worked with her to try and find some ways to enrich the environment of the Fens Unit, Whitemoor Prison, and create meaningful use of sound. http://www.justinwiggan.co.uk/ 

’To be a man without a child....’

Rob Hadley is an independent research consultant who has conducted research with the Open University and Manchester Metropolitan University where he is an associate lecturer. His research concerns the impact of male involuntary childlessness across the life course. He studied the topic for his dissertation and discovered there was very little information about men’s desire for fatherhood or experience of unwanted childlessness. 
He is also a counsellor and author of Male Childlessness as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles on this theme.
This may seem like an unusual topic for us but there are many men who are incarcerated for years and from an early age. For those men in the high secure estate who aren’t already fathers when they come to prison they are likely spend the period of life most associated with reproductive success inside and possibly miss the boat altogether. 
Rob has been unshirking in facing up to the issues around involuntary childlessness. Many of these issues are rarely spoken about, if at all and it does not always make for comfortable listening. But in the end it makes for an affecting and thought provoking conversation.

’Seeing myself through the lens of a character’. Butler Trust Commendee Rowan Mackenzie on forming a theatre company in a prison.

Rowan Mackenzie is both academic and practitioner. Her doctoral research on Creating Space for Shakespeare with Marginalised Communities considered how Shakespeare can be appropriated by people with learning disabilities, people with mental health issues, people who are incarcerated and people who have experienced homelessness. She is also Artistic Director of Shakespeare UnBard, having worked in English prisons since 2017, founding theatre companies (The Gallowfield Players and Emergency Shakespeare). The theatre companies are run entirely collaboratively with each actor having equal ownership, encouraging them to develop positive autonomy, self-confidence and transferable skills. She works with a wide-ranging population including those serving life sentences and those convicted of sexual offences. She has won numerous awards for the quality and effectiveness of her work including Prisoner Learning Alliance Outstanding Individual, Worshipful Company of Educators Inspirational Educator for Shakespeare and is currently shortlisted for the prestigious a Butler Trust Commendation. She is also a Trustee for 1623Theatre and Shakespeare consultant for Blue Apple Theatre. She has published and spoken about her work nationally and internationally in fields including criminology, prison education, Shakespeare, social justice and applied theatre and co-organised the annual Applying Shakespeare Symposiums. She is in the process of establishing a theatre company for those released from prison and also works with children of incarcerated parents.

David and Naomi talk about their first ten podcasts.

This short conversation gives David and Naomi a chance to talk about their first ten podcasts and the great conversations they have had with their generous collaborators.

Lawrence Jones on the fine detail of Trauma. A psychologist’s journey from Wormwood Scrubs to Rampton Hospital.

In this conversation Lawrence gives a fascinating description of the therapeutic community at Wormwood Scrubs prison which closed soon after the death of Dr Max Glatt. He goes on to give us insight into his developing thinking on the nature of trauma and states of mind as it relates to forensic practice.
Lawrence Jones is a clinical and forensic psychologist, currently Head of Psychology at Rampton High Secure Hospital and Honorary Associate Clinical Professor at Nottingham University. He teaches regularly on the Sheffield and Leicester Clinical Psychology doctorate courses as well as the Forensic Doctorate at Nottingham University, He has previously been the Chair of the Division of Forensic Psychology.
Lawrence has had a long and extensive career within forensic services across both criminal justice and mental health settings with a significant amount of time spent working within therapeutic communities. Significantly this included the Annexe at Wormwood Scrubs prison, also referred to as the Max Glatt Unit. Lawrence has trained in multiple models of psychological therapy including Schema focused Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Analytic therapy which he has integrated into his knowledge of TC culture and treatment and has worked hard throughout his career to try and find ways to ensure the services he is responsible for are as accessible as possible.
Lawrence has very many publications to his name but is particularly interested in furthering an understanding of those who attract a diagnosis of personality disorder and offsetting the adverse impacts of chronic trauma and loss of liberty. 

A scholar of tragedy and misery; half vocation, half accident. Prison ethnography in the pursuit of imponderable knowledge

In this conversation Andrew talks about his ongoing work in Myanmar and the concern he and his colleagues share for their colleagues and all the people of the country currently subject to a brutal military coup. He offers us engagingly honest accounts of his study in prisons across africa and asia and these give moving insights into the method of this ethnographer..
Andrew Jefferson is an ethnographer with a background in psychology. He is Senior Researcher with Dignity, Danish Institute Against Torture. Since 2000 Andrew has been working on issues related to prisons ‘beyond the west’ with a focus on penal practice and the dynamics and consequences of reform interventions targeting prisons in the global south.
We had a couple of technical hitches during the making of this conversation. You may notice them though they barely show after our editing, but our apologies for this, the content more than makes up for it.

Jewel in the crown or guilty secret. HMP Grendon approaches 60.

Grendon was opened in 1962, with the support of RA Butler then Home Secretary of the conservative government. How times have changed, well have they? In this conversation Geraldine Akerman and Richard Shuker talk about their 40 years of combined experience in this unique therapeutic prison.
Hon. Professor DR. GERALDINE AKERMAN is a Forensic Psychologist and Therapy Manager at HMP Grendon. She has worked for the prison service since 1999 assessing risk and providing treatment to men convicted of violent and sexual offences and with complex needs. She is the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Division of Forensic Psychology. Geraldine has co-edited a book on Enabling Environments and one on the subject of assessing and managing problematic sexual interests.  Geraldine was awarded a PhD by the University of Birmingham in 2015.  Geraldine was presented with the Senior Practitioner Award by the Division of Forensic Psychology 2018 for distinguished contribution to Forensic Psychology. 
Richard Shuker is a Chartered Forensic Psychologist and Head of Clinical Services at HMP Grendon, a therapeutic community for prisoners with a personality disorder. Formerly lead psychologist within Grendon he now leads the clinical and research provision within its therapeutic communities. He spent the early part of his career working with young offenders and his special interests now include the assessment and treatment of offenders with personality disorders and other complex needs. He is particularly interested in relationships and social climate within prisons and how these can provide the conditions for change. He is Series Editor for the book series Issues in Forensic Psychology. He has published widely in areas including risk assessment, treatment readiness, social climate and trauma, therapeutic outcome and clinical intervention. He has co-edited a number of books and journals in the field of forensic psychology and therapeutic communities.

Rely on your own heart and reason,....and divine inspiration

Abdullah Mia joins us in a fascinating conversation about his work, his background as a muslim whose family came from India and how this has influenced his life. As a Consultant Clinical Psychologist Abdullah has a profound influence upon the places he works. He describes his frequent encounters with racism, how he actively copes with this, confronting it when necessary. He shares his experiences of developing as a person, a practitioner and a leader. The title, 'Rely on your own heart and reason,....and divine inspiration', is a quotation from Homer that Abdullah endorses saying, 'this is as far away from British Psychology as it is possible to be'.
 
Abdullah Mia Biography
My personal history influences me as much as my professional history, therefore I come from a Indian Gujarati Muslim background, and was encouraged to celebrate other people’s cultures even though they were not my own ie. Christmas, Diwali etc.  Here began my ‘difference is OK’ experiences, in the context of ongoing anxiety about racism as I grew up.  My family also have a strong traditional element, which means hierarchies of respect entwined with patriarchal and caste based systems.  This also introduced me to difference can be ‘bad’.  This personal conflict has taken some time to understand and process and the way I have navigated difficult conversations with family and community also influence how I navigate hierarchies within my professional life.
 
My professional life has varied, beginning as  teaching assistant, through to a reparation officer with YOT teams in Lancashire, and then as a youth worker.  As a youth worker, I also began volunteering as an Assistant Psychologist, before a paid post in a community psychology project in Liverpool working with refugees and asylum seekers, I think unconsciously and consciously I have been always motivated to work with difference and marginalised groups, and this has contributed to me also working with offenders.  Moments of reflection seem to lead me to think that it's linked with my own experiences of inhabiting multiple worlds, and navigating these stressors and joys.  Since training as a clinical psychologist, I have also completed training in group analysis (but not the full analyst training!) and really like to incorporate how the social and political worlds present in our bodies and our minds.  This combined with my continued in how people navigate racial and ethnic differences in the work, and how this can also give us some understanding and learning about what it means to navigate multiple spheres of life, and ultimately different conflicts.

Lorna Rhodes; What can make a difference? Comparing HMP Grendon with a High Secure unit in a Washington State Prison.

Lorna A. Rhodes is professor emeritus at the University of Washington, where she taught medical and institutional anthropology.  She is the author of Emptying Beds: The Work of an Emergency Psychiatric Unit (University of California Press 1991) and Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison (University of California Press 2004).  She has published several articles about HMP Grendon, where she spent a month conducting research in 2008. Every working day she went to B wing therapeutic community, attending community meetings and talking with staff and residents. This conversation looks at this experience and compares it with research done at a high secure unit in a prison in Washington State.