The end of the sentence : psychotherapy with female offenders

Acknowledgements; Series editor's foreword, Brett Kahr; Editors and contributors; Foreword, Estela Welldon; Introduction, Jessica Collier; Part I: Prison and the symbolic mother; Chapter One: The violence of austerity, Maureen Mansfield; Chapter Two: Twenty years in prison: reflections on the birth of the Born Inside project and psychotherapy in HMP Holloway, Pamela Windham Stewart; Chapter Three: Who’s holding the baby? Containment, dramatherapy and the pregnant therapist, Lorna Downing and Lorraine Grout; Part II: Working with institutional dynamics; Chapter Four: Encountering HMP Holloway: a conversation, Paola Franciosi and Karen Rowe; Chapter Five: Challenges: working at the boundary of confinement and freedom, Kimberley Wilson; Chapter Six: Parallel endings: a personal reflection on the closing of HMP Holloway, Chrissy Reeves; Part III: Lives lived in prison; Chapter 7: Living and dying: a journey through the life cycle of the Onyx art therapy group for women from overseas, Siobhan Lennon and Zoe Atkinson; Chapter 8: "I will never get out of here": therapeutic work with an Imprisonment for Public Protection prisoner caught up in the criminal justice system, Sabina Amiga; Chapter 9 "I could do it on my eyelashes": holding the unthinkable for the unthinking patient, Frances Maclennan and Catherine McCoy; Part IV: Prison and society; Chapter 10: Holloway and after: from loss to creativity, Sophie Benedict; Chapter 11: Trauma, art and the "borderspace": working with unconscious re-enactments, Jessica Collier; Afterword, Jessica Collier and Pamela Windham Stewart

HMP Holloway was the largest women's prison in Europe, historically holding numerous infamous female criminals and eliciting intrigue and fascination from the public. The End of the Sentence: Psychotherapy with Female Offenders documents the rich and varied psychotherapeutic work undertaken by dedicated specialists in this intense and often difficult environment, where attempts to provide psychological security were often undermined by conflicting ideas of physical security.

Chapter 7 is co-authored by SLAM's Zoe Atkinson: Living and dying: a journey through the life cycle of the Onyx art therapy group for women from overseas, Siobhan Lennon and Zoe Atkinson.

Women commit crime most often in the context of poverty, addiction and transgenerational violence or trauma, familial cycles of offending and imprisonment which are often overlooked. Using personal testimony and case studies, and screened through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, the book examines the enduring therapeutic and relational endeavour to find connection, closure and to experience a "good enough" ending with prisoners when the possibility of a positive new beginning often seemed remote. It also considers how the cultural and political discourse remains hostile towards women who are incarcerated, and how this may have culminated in the closure of the only female prison in London.

Through insightful real-life accounts, this insightful book also emphasizes the importance of professionals finding ways of supporting one another to offer women who have entered the criminal justice system a way to leave it. It will prove fascinating reading for forensic psychotherapists, forensic psychologists and criminologists, as well as anything interested in the criminal justice system.