Moving On: A Group for Patients Leaving a High Security Hospital

Abstract

In this paper, the authors describe the work of a group set up for those patients who are leaving a high security forensic psychiatric hospital, all having been detained under the 1983 Mental Health Act for England and Wales. Background information on the hospital is presented, as well as an overall view of the patients and their problems. The origins of the group are documented, followed with examples of group dynamics peculiar to the practice of forensic psychotherapy and conscious and unconscious anxieties on the part of the therapists as well as the patients.