‘Enabling Environments’: The lived experience of Category A prisoners on a Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder unit

Abstract

The study explores the lived experience of Category A prisoners on a Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) unit. Specifically the focus was on exploring what core environmental qualities Category A prisoners residing on a DSPD unit consider to be necessary for the unit to be an ‘enabling environment’ based on their actual experience of engaging and residing on the Westgate DSPD unit. A secondary aim of exploring the congruence between participants’ responses and the nine core elements of an ‘enabling environment’ proposed by Johnson and Haigh (2011) was also considered. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) method was chosen for this study as it focused on understanding the meaning attributed by participants to their particular lived experience. Four participants (Category A prisoners post-DSPD treatment) were interviewed using semi-structured questions based on existing research. Interviews lasted an hour and were analysed using IPA (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009), an idiographic method that allows an in-depth analysis of the transcripts. Analysis of the four interviews produced three superordinate themes: identity within a social world, embracing change and maintaining stability throughout change. Participants found the DSPD unit environment provided opportunity, choice and the chance to take personal responsibility for change. Inconsistent rules and lack of transparent decision making were highlighted by participants as factors that imbalanced the overall positive experience of the DSPD unit environment. Additionally, the nine core elements of an ‘enabling environment’ as proposed by Johnson and Haigh (2011) appeared to map onto the emerged three superordinate themes. This is indicative that the actual lived experience of Category A prisoners, meeting criteria for DSPD services, supports that the Westgate DSPD unit has elements of an ‘enabling environment.’ Furthermore, there are implications that the core elements of an ‘enabling environment’ could be considered within the context of three broader themes: encourage identity within a social world, embrace change, and maintain stability throughout change.