Two titles from the ‘Forensic Focus’ series

These two remarkable books published in Jessica Kingsley’s ‘Forensic Focus’ series in 2012, contain essential papers for contemporary practitioners. Although many of the ideas were forged in settings subsequently decommissioned (cf. editorial commentary, The Therapeutic Milieu Under Fire), the 40 practitioners speak of enduring understandings of complexity in the field of humane care, undaunted by the amnesiac forces of relentless organisational self-reinvention.

The The Therapeutic Milieu Under Fire is particularly well edited to reflect a wealth of diverse interests in its three sections. Chapters associate to topics of ‘psycho-social dynamics of engagement’ ‘the milieu under attack’ and ‘resilience, reflection and reparation’. The most choric chapter is by one of the editors – Christopher Scanlon’s erudite and sophisticated thoughts on the collections’ reiterated theme of multidisciplinary team Reflective Practice (Ch. 14). In the ‘Traumatised-organisation-in-the-mind’ Scanlon describes the imaginative and ‘archival’ functions of practitioners’ discussions of ‘what they and their patients have been doing together’ (p. 222). Indeed, one of the satisfactions of the collection is hearing from practitioners who have been thinking together over a long period of time, in the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy and beyond. Each author brings their own special insights to an already highly evolved body of thought. In the context of such creative inter-professional ‘groupishness’, it is particularly sad to note the death of Martin Wrench in 2014 (Ch. 8).

The opening chapters of The Therapeutic Milieu Under Fire provide essential insight into the dynamics of the workplace for a wide range of settings, within and well beyond the forensic specialism. Celia Taylor’s superb ‘Complaints as a tool for bullying’ (Ch. 4) details how institutional procedures for promoting justice

and respect for service users can become tools for patients’ vengeful re-enactments t