The BASH HOUSE: Within the Bluestone Walls of a Maximum Security Prison

This paper is about my supervision of the two probationary psychologists who were employed in a maximum-security prison to run a high-intensity violence intervention program for maximum-security inmates. The psychoanalytic frame became the initial trigger, a scapegoat, for my dismissal as their forensic psychology supervisor. An informal ministerial enquiry followed. I was re-instated. The context of this breakout/breakdown was the ruptured container of a maximum-security prison which violently torpedoed into the therapeutic container and reflective edge of the consulting room. The prison's walls hide the dark secrets of crimes. The haunting screams of those murdered are silenced but they ricochet down the corridors of the cell-blocks. The inmates held captive cry “Mummy, help me, please help me!”, but their cries have been killed off long ago, neither heard nor answered. This paper is a tribute to the psychoanalytic frame. It is also an indictment of aspects of the prison system for psychologists and inmates in Australia. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.