by Gwen Adshead
My colleague also pointed out that Zahra may well have thought my question about hurting her family was a criticism of her. She had probably experienced me as being like her mother, uninterested in her distress and careless of what she might be feeling. I realised that in the ‘heat of the moment’, all her pent-up fury towards her mother had transferred itself onto me. This kind of ‘redirection’ of feeling by a patient onto their therapist was not a new idea to me; it is a basic part of psychoanalytic theory, and it applies equally to positive and negative emotions, including love, dependence, anger and distrust.
I knew if I could explain this to Zahra, it might help, and I took it as a good sign that at least she was doing something different with her anger. Instead of externalising it and taking it out on her body or inanimate objects that might burn, she had protested her pain with a verbal attack on the person who had hurt her, as any one of us might. Although swearing at people and slamming doors is not the best way of communicating, I thought Zahra had done something authentic and healthy by being open and honest in her anger. It was, therefore, crucial that the therapy didn’t stop at this point, and thankfully I was able to persuade both staff and Zahra of this.
I could see that she was embarrassed when I came to her cell door to ask her to return to therapy; she didn’t want to look at me as I apologised and asked if we could talk about what had happened. Her awkwardness in the face of my genuine regret and my invitation to begin again made it clear that she was unfamiliar with how she might work through a conflict and make a repair. This is such a vital tool to have for building trust in close relationships, and I was grateful when she agreed to another session together.
When we looked at what had happened that day she stormed out, Zahra was able to acknowledge that there had been a confusion in her mind between the past and the present. The fact that we were working together again demonstrated to her that anger in close relationships is survivable. We were able to circle back to my question about the extent to which she had caused her family alarm and distress, and in time she was able to acknowledge that she had. We also talked about the challenge of how to manage her distress if she didn’t use fire or self-harm. Although she didn’t look the part, I thought Zahra had a lot in common with Marvel Comics’ Hulk, the traumatised child who becomes dangerous when angry. At one point, she even quoted unconsciously from the film, saying, ‘Don’t make me angry, you won’t like me if I’m angry.’ I had to work hard to stifle a smile at the chaos that would ensue if this seemingly meek and mild woman morphed into a muscle-bound monster in the midst of a women’s prison.
After nine months with me, Zahra was no longer considered to be a suicide risk, and her ACCT book was closed. She was informed that she was going to be moved to another women’s prison to finish her sentence, and before she left we had a final few sessions together. We talked about her future risk to herself and others, and she said she didn’t think she would set another fire, but she couldn’t promise not to shout and curse or slam doors when people upset her. I made a recommendation to her probation officer that Zahra ought to get further help from the mental health team in her next prison, including some more one-to-one therapeutic work, if possible. She could have benefited from some group anger management therapy too, I knew, but this was rarely offered in the female estate, where group programmes tended to address trauma and loss. This was almost a decade ago, but the same is still true today. Even if using violence to cope with feelings of anger and despair has led to their imprisonment, that capacity in women continues to be tacitly excluded from therapeutic interventions, which is not an honest communication to the female perpetrator or the public. Whatever therapies she might access, it would be important in Zahra’s next case review to highlight the importance of continuing to work on herself, which could eventually lead to her release back into the community.
Some readers of Zahra’s story might think she was primarily a victim, hardly comparable to a homicidal or sexually violent prisoner. There is truth in that, but it’s worth reiterating that we don’t always think that way about men with similar histories and offences. Their anger and capacity for violence is always taken seriously, but we struggle with seeing women as dangerous to others because it is so rare for them to act those feelings out with violence. Most of the harm they do is to themselves, but Zahra’s behaviour repeatedly put others in danger as well. Any difference in our sympathy towards her suggests we have a gendered view of evil, whereby men’s violence is seen as essentially different to women’s, which profits no one. If anything, it bolsters the pernicious concept that it is somehow ‘normal’ for men to be destructive and violent, and that victimhood is part of the essential identity of a woman.
Despite my training and considerable experience in working with female violent offenders, I realised I was just as guilty of this bias when I worked with Zahra. I had not found it easy to stay in an objective state with someone who had nearly killed herself and others more than once. I doubt I would have seen her as ‘a mouse’ if she were a man who had done the same. In the end, what mattered most was not how I or anyone else saw her, but whether she could let go of labels she’d been given, like ‘late child’ or ‘bad girl’. The urgent challenge is to take a hard look at our priorities and prejudices in a justice system and a society where only a few women like Zahra will get the help they need, and only when they literally or metaphorically set themselves on fire.
NOTES
1 Gannon, T. A. (2010) ‘Female Arsonists: Key Features, Psychopathologies and Treatment Needs’, Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 73, 173–89. And Dickens, G., Sugarman, P., Ahmad, F., Edgar, S., Hofberg, K. and Tewari, S. (2007) ‘Gender Differences Amongst Adult Arsonists at Psychiatric Assessment’, Medicine, Science and the Law, 47:3, 233–8.
2 See the Ministry of Justice’s quarterly ‘Safety in Custody’ report (July 2020): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-march-2020; also Maya Oppenheim’s article ‘You Could See Their Distress’ (2020) is just one of a vast body of reports on this sorry trend among women: https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/uk-news/self-harm-women-prison-gender-men-stats-a9332401.html.
3 Adshead, G. (2010) ‘Written on the Body: Deliberate Self-Harm as Communication’, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 24:2, 69–80.
4 From ‘A Servant to Servants’ by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1930, 1939, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 1958 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1967 by Lesley Frost Ballantine.
5 In Pfäfflin, F. and Adshead, G. (Eds) (2003) A Matter of Security: Attachment Theory and Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (London: Jessica Kingsley), pp. 147–66.
6 Kahneman, D. (2013) Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux).
IAN
‘You have reached your destination,’ the GPS pronounced. I edged my car to the kerb on a bland suburban street, peering doubtfully at the faded house numbers. There it was, the two-storeyed brick house at the end. Housing for people on probation has to be discreet, with no signage or other markers. There was some minor security at the door, and I was asked for my ID by a staffer. Much like the neighbourhood outside, the man who came down the stairs to meet me was nondescript. Like so many people who’ve been imprisoned for a long time, there was a certain air of wariness and sadness about him.
Ian had been released from prison a week earlier, after serving a long sentence for the sexual abuse of his two young sons. Middle-aged, with narrow shoulders and a slim frame, he had close-cropped sandy-reddish hair and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of a sharp nose, and was wearing jeans and a plain sweatshirt over a collared shirt. Years ago, I recall working in prison with a man convicted of child sex offences, and a prison officer remarked to me that he ‘looked like a typical nonce’. I couldn’t make any sense of this; it’s important, not least for safety’s sake, that everyone accepts that sex offenders
don’t have distinguishing features, any more than terrorists do. ‘Neat and boring’ was my first impression of Ian, much like other men in his position, who generally don’t want to attract attention to themselves, in or out of prison.
He squinted at my proffered ID and mispronounced my surname with a soft ‘sh’, as people do. I accepted his offer of a cup of tea, and he directed me to a room off the hall where we could talk. Mismatched furniture was oriented around a small TV, and I chose an armchair near the door, next to a bookcase holding a range of scruffy paperbacks. Scanning the titles, I couldn’t help feeling some amusement that many of them were true crime books or detective novels. ‘Do you take sugar?’ Ian was back, bearing two steaming mugs. The purpose of our meeting was far from the quotidian social exchange, but it was starting like any other English conversation. ‘If we don’t mention the weather soon,’ I thought, ‘there’ll be a comment about food.’ Sure enough, Ian added, ‘Sorry, we’re out of biscuits.’
At the time, I was still doing some work in prisons, but I had also joined a mental health team that liaised with the probation service to give support to newly released prisoners like Ian. There was increasing concern about the risk of suicide in men on probation, and the request for me to see Ian had come about partly for that reason. He’d been treated for depression while in prison and was transitioning back into the community after a decade inside, which is never easy. I had been told he’d accepted my offer of this meeting without question, which could indicate receptivity, but I thought it might also mean he was institutionalised, used to doing as he was asked.
We sat facing each other across a wooden coffee table, which was scarred with cigarette burns and scald circles. The house was quiet. It was probably filled to capacity, given that hostel beds are in short supply and always in demand, but residents are expected to be out during the day, looking for work or meeting with the probation or housing services. I began with a few general questions, nothing too intrusive. Did he like the house? (Yes, it was fine.) Was he getting out much? (Yes, there was a bus at the end of the road into town.) What sort of work would he be looking for? (Maybe construction, but it’s winter, so …) His voice trailed off, and he sat gazing into his mug, as if the tea leaves might reveal something about his prospects. These banalities could easily fill the whole appointment time, and I knew that I was going to have to go deeper, even though I was aware that both of us might be reluctant to do so. I had a sense of Ian standing on a ledge, waiting for me to say something that would tip him over into feelings of hurt and shame.
I went forward gently, asking whether things had changed much since he last lived in this area. On release, most offenders are rehabilitated in their home district, unless there is some objection or restriction. Ian had been placed only a couple of miles from his old neighbourhood, but there was no need for an ‘exclusion zone’ because his family had long since moved away. A red flush crept up his neck to colour his sallow cheeks, and his hand gripped the arm of the sofa. ‘The neighbourhood’s not changed much,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t know anyone round here any more, and the family are long gone … I mean … I don’t know where.’ He swallowed hard and added, ‘There was no return address on that … you know, the letter.’
This letter was another reason why I’d been asked to see Ian. One of his sons, who was now nineteen years old, had recently contacted the probation service to ask if he could meet with his father, in a letter that was brief and polite, revealing nothing of his feelings or intentions. In cases like this, it’s unusual for family members to reach out, and the request was causing the probation team some anxiety. The young man was of age, and a private citizen. Nobody had the right to question or control his actions, nor was there a duty to protect him – but they did have a responsibility to support Ian, who was already exposed and fragile. The team had debated holding off telling him about his son’s wish, perhaps just for a few months until he got settled, but decided that such dishonesty would undermine their work with him. When Ian had come in for his weekly meeting with his probation officer a few days earlier, he had been shown the letter. I was told he responded with a mixture of shock and alarm, and I tried to reassure him I wasn’t there to make matters worse. ‘We don’t have to talk about the letter today, if you don’t want to.’
‘I suppose I do,’ Ian said wearily. ‘I mean, nobody likes it.’ ‘Who doesn’t like what?’ I asked. ‘You know, the whole idea.’ I asked him why he thought people wouldn’t want him to meet … I reached for his son’s name, even as I wondered if it was a good idea to summon him into the room in this way. ‘… Is it Hamish?’ Ian flinched a little, an involuntary response alerting both of us to the fact that the past was live and painful. By this time, I knew how important it was to read a sign like this, and to wait until we had built some rapport before trying to go deeper. I realised it would be difficult.
I let Ian know that I would need to take a history as part of my assessment, but we didn’t have to go there today. He seemed much relieved. Could he tell me how he felt about his son’s letter? Ian sat forward, becoming a little more animated. ‘They don’t want me to reply, I know. How would it look, if it got out in the local press?’ An interesting response, because this wasn’t addressing how he felt; he was thinking about the minds of the probation team. That was hopeful – it might mean he could mentalise his victims’ emotions too. But it could also imply a self-centred motive, dressed up as concern for others: a worry about how public exposure might affect him. Ian’s voice turned bitter, almost a snarl. ‘“Local paedo visits son,” right? That’s what they’d say, I bet you.’
I had already been given some background by his probation team. Ian had been released on licence by the parole board, after serving ten years of a twenty-year sentence. Although it does mean freedom from incarceration, release on probation is not equivalent to liberty. It is an extension of prison, with strict regulation and communication systems put in place meant to scrutinise the offender and prevent recidivism through a recall to prison, if the risk justifies this. Ian’s crime was abusing his two sons, Hamish, then nine years old, and his brother Andrew, aged eleven. His wife Sheila had reported him to the police. While on remand, he had denied the charges, but ultimately he pleaded guilty. As far as I knew, Ian had not had any contact with his family since the night of his arrest, and Sheila had divorced him while he was inside.
He was right that local journalists would probably pounce on a piece about a close-to-home crime like this, to serve up on the front page with a mugshot. A paedophile is sure to grab the readers’ attention, as someone we’re all allowed to hate. I’ve noticed how the most famous contemporary fictional account, in Nabokov’s Lolita, will routinely come up in media coverage, especially if there’s a young girl involved; Mr Humbert is the iconic ‘paedo’. But for me, the narrative of a man like Ian has much more in common with the inexorable path Dostoevsky charts in Crime and Punishment: the gradual conception of a foul thing, its emergence into being and action, and the slow unwinding of consequences, the tortured aftermath.
If we surveyed a representative cross-section of people today, asking them to rank the worst examples of human evil, there’s a good chance that ‘paedos’ – or, to use the professional term, child sex offenders (CSOs) – would come first. I am sceptical about the notion of any kind of hierarchy of evil, but I know the public fascination with CSOs verges on obsession in its intensity. I don’t recall this being true in the early part of my career, nor do I think it can be explained by an increased number of convictions for child sex abuse in recent years. Those figures have remained steady for three decades. Even allowing for under-reporting, sexual abuse of children is less common than other types of child maltreatment.
One explanation for this contemporary focus on CSOs must be the internet and social media, which increase awareness of every kind of activity, near and far, and the surge in the production and use of child pornography, which is obviously a form of sexual abuse of children. We also
know that violent victimisation, in all its forms, has increased lately, for the first time in half a century. Intriguing research by American colleagues, including Professor Jim Gilligan and others,1 finds a correlation, particularly among men, between shame and higher rates of violence in times of increased social instability and wealth inequality.
Different countries and societies mount different social and legal responses to the demon ‘paedo’. In the UK, as in much of the US, it is a requirement for communities to be informed when a convicted CSO moves into the area; this has given rise to some press and community reactions that look a lot like vigilantism. In some jurisdictions, people are kept on registers (signing up with local authorities, restricted from working with young people, etc.) long after they have served their prison sentence and done their probation. Sometimes this will be for life, which is not the case for a range of other serious or even fatal crimes; this is another way society reinforces the notion that child sex offences are the ‘worst’ evil. It has occurred to me that this extreme level of commingled interest and disgust about the sexual abuse of children might have a quality that is hard to articulate. C. S. Lewis spoke of a ‘felt evil’ for things that have an exciting ‘tang’ about them, precisely because they are forbidden.
