NCJ Number
79049
Journal
Federal Probation Volume: 45 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1981) Pages: 44-48
Date Published
1981
Length
5 pages
Annotation
A case history of the use of inmate restraints is presented to demonstrate the rehabilitative challenges involved in such situations.
Abstract
The inmate involved was a 34-year-old black female originally committed to a Federal facility for 1-9 years for assault on a Federal officer. After psychiatric evaluation which diagnosed her as paranoid schizophrenic, she was transferred to the Female Psychiatric Unit at Lexington, Ky., for long-term intensive psychotherapeutic care. During the first month of evaluation, she was required to deal with many institutional limitations, until two specific denials, the breaking of an appointment by legal counsel and her lack of money to purchase cigarettes, precipitated angry destruction of property and sustained periods of rage that caused the staff to bind her arms and legs to a bed in isolation. At this stage, the inmate was viewed as being in the process of regression toward infantile rage, probably associated with her abandonment and mistreatment in her early years. The staff was careful to make interpersonal contact with her at each stage of disintegration, in order to impress upon her that she had not been abandoned and that she was indeed being cared for even in the midst of her rage. The therapist's refusal to be 'scared off' by her threatening behavior has established a solid beginning for long term treatment. Many additional therapeutic stages must follow, which will probably include such major landmarks as the merger of 'good' and 'bad' people in order to establish and be able to bear ambivalence toward others, progression through the stages of depression, and the establishment of dependable and realistic interpersonal relationships. Ten footnotes are listed.