ASIN: B00OBXSB7G
Publisher: George Grunwald, LCSW
Pages: 100
Once mental health clinicians are convinced that the work they do is meaningless, that the tasks they perform do nothing to better the lives of the people they want to serve, they are almost certain to burn out. This psychic hazard is particularly acute in prisons and jails, which are harsh, bleak and dysfunctional -- supremely anti-therapeutic environments. During my almost twenty years as a psychiatric social worker in correctional settings, I teased out and articulated a set of goals for my therapeutic work with incarcerated men. These goals were worthwhile. They were achievable. Working toward these goals, I turned the toxicity of prison into therapeutic assets. My sense of the goals of therapy in correctional settings may make sense to readers; it may not. No matter; I firmly believe that if I could find meaning in this setting, other clinicians can too. It isn’t easy. It’s ...
