Forensic psychotherapy

Introduction

This edition of the journal looks at the contribution specialist forensic psychotherapy can make to the rigorous disciplines of forensic psychiatry and the law, as well as helping general psychotherapists who encounter forensic issues. As Bluglass (1990, p. 7) put it ‘The role of the forensic psychiatrist in confronting and trying to reconcile the differences between the interests of the law and those of psychiatry is a crucial and important one’.

Forensic psychotherapy can help. It is a bridge between traditional forensic psychiatry with a major focus on diagnosis and risk, and traditional psychotherapy with a focus on understanding why things happen. Williams (1991) described the difficulties encountered in the successful bridging of both disciplines. According to Harding (1992), there is an inevitable, and indeed necessary, conflict of values between the forensic psychiatry and criminal justice systems. Evaluations should ideally be conducted independently, according to criteria that correspond to health-based values (Reed Report, 1992).

Forensic psychotherapy seeks to understand the unconscious motivations that underpin specific offending behaviours. We need to understand not only the detail of the crime, but about the individual as a whole person within his environment (including the criminal justice environment). The criminal action is the central fact. Unfortunately, some psychotherapeutic approaches can seem to be a ‘soft’ option, justifying and rationalizing behaviour to provide ‘false understanding’. Our forensic patients use similar mechanisms to conceal their ‘real selves’ resulting in encapsulation of the offending behaviour and keeping it hidden or minimized. An effective collusion between society and offenders is at work. The criminal action always appears understandable as an action against society, yet at the same time, it is unconsciously a self-destructive act, with harmful effects for the offender also. This aspect of criminality associ