Daring to Engage: Psychoanalysis for Young Offenders in a Unit-based Therapy Programme

Abstract

The authors are, respectively, the clinical manager and the clinical consultant to a unit-based therapy program for young offenders in custody. The structure and operation of the program are applications of psychoanalysis, systems theory and the concept of the therapeutic community. A particular focus of the program is a therapy group (the `Thursday Group') which the authors co-conduct. The structure and functioning of the Thursday Group is described as an elaboration of the work of the unit. Central to the work of the Thursday Group is engagement with delinquent mental processes, aspects of which the authors describe in terms of `absence', 'hole-in-the-mind' and a level of symbolic functioning referred to as `concrete'.