“100% of people in prison are people.”
-John Oliver
For the past four years I have been volunteering at a local prison. It began out of an experience with a broken family and a broken father, full of shame and guilt and unable to reconnect with his son. It haunted me and drove me to research why recidivism rates are so high and to see if I could take my skills to help others who might be in the same situation. It has been an exciting adventure and has put me face to face with perhaps the most pressing crisis of humanity in our nation’s history. I am using play therapy for self-repair with adult male inmates and in my thirty years of being in the counseling field, this endeavor ranks as the most amazing experience of my professional life.
People’s reactions to the topic of prison range from disgust to apathy. But let’s not be so quick to judge. Unless you’ve had a family member who was incarcerated or other circumstance which led to your familiarity with the prison system, it might as well be how we react to the exploration of Mars: “I know it’s out there, and somebody’s doing something, but it doesn’t affect me and so therefore I really don’t care.” The same can be said for American’s reactions to anything unfamiliar: Poverty, foster care, or homelessness. The government and the media has done excellent work in contributing to everyday citizen’s complacent mindset that prisons are necessary, that those incarcerated should suffer because somehow they are ‘less’ than, and that withholding services once someone is incarcerated is, well, just part of the punishment process. “Sucks to be you; shouldn’t have broken the law, dummy.”
I began visiting the prison where I volunteer in 2019. Prison is the craziest place I’ve ever been. There is a schedule, sort of, but when it changes and who changes it no one can tell. There are varying levels of noise and constant low-level din, loud announcements and the slamming of doors. The razor wire gleams like the teeth of a wolf, reminding anyone inside the barrier that there is no way to out. There is heat, and I was surprised to find that none of the dorms at the facility where I serve have air conditioning. Many of the inmates tell me that this common in Florida’s prison system. This past August saw temperatures of 100+ with 100% humidity, with inside temperatures hitting 110-115 degrees. With the heat comes smells, a cornucopia of body odor mixed with soap and cleaning solution. There is a lack of privacy with commodes out in the open and shower stalls with no curtains. I’m told the food is horrendous with meat coming in tubes and vegetables that are unrecognizable. Since the pandemic, there is a severe staff shortage and many of the guards work double shifts. Many appear tired and I try to encourage them when I visit.
Play and Healing from Complex Trauma
So, what am I doing here? I am using play therapy for the purpose of self-repair in healing the effects of complex trauma, the effects of which most inmates appear to suffer. Complex trauma is characterized by psychological suffering stemming from experiences of abuse, abandonment, and neglect that often occurs in childhood. The symptoms of complex trauma include self-rejection, a pattern of broken relationships with the inability to sustain relationships, shame and guilt, difficulty regulating emotions, and feelings of worthlessness which contributes to the difficulty in commitment to tasks and relationships. There is much research that supports the idea that simply being incarcerated is traumatizing, fostering a unique bundle of residual symptoms that arise from the experience. Recidivism, the return to prison following incarceration is a big problem, with some numbers as high as seven out of ten inmates returning after serving their initial sentence. Research reveals that a large factor in recidivism that goes unnoticed and untreated are the development and healing of the elements of self required to be successful in life that stem from abandonment and unresolved trauma: Self-acceptance, self-understanding and self-regulation. Each of these is a direct result of a nurturing, supportive environment that many inmates never received. Play influences neurological healing in the following ways:
· Self-Repair: The ability to forgive myself through re-examining past experiences and playing through difficult or painful experiences
· Self-Regulation: Learning to be comfortable in the moment through releasing the impulse that I am not safe and being grounded
· Self-Acceptance: Learning to understand myself and being able to reframe the narrative of “me” through being in this moment
· Safety: I’m in control of what I do or use to craft understanding and expression of my experiences
· Healing of Self Generalizing to Repair of and Forming Relationships: As I heal and understand myself, I’m able to see relationships in a new way. I can repair broken relationships and build new ones, as well as letting go of relationships that are not helping support my new self.
Play therapy is not just for kids. A theme in trauma is that parts of the brain become stuck, anything new is blocked. Therefore, it is impossible to process what happened in addition to learning anything new that can calm the storm that internally rages. Play circumvents this process by:
· Providing a safe distance from which to view the experience.
· Triggers different circuitry to learn new things: New narratives about the experience (“I was 6 years old, how could I be expected to take care of the adults?”) as well as new narratives of the self that lead to self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.
· Gives the person a sense of being in control of the material and the process. This tends to create a sense of safety that promotes a healing process
Advocacy
Another part of my volunteering in the prison system is to advocate for mental health inclusion and reform. While many prison systems have mental health “care” if someone is psychotic or suicidal, there isn’t enough focus on ameliorating the effects of day-to-day stress. Access to a counselor and helping an inmate process a past stressful experience or helping them work through a current stressful experience is something that is not available. When I began volunteering, I did a great deal of research on the history of America’s prison systems, the plight of those who have served time and attempted to rebuild their life, and the billion-dollar industry that is the American prison system. My hope is to publish the results of my work and spread the word to other professional counselors, play therapists, and other mental health care professionals and to appeal to the State of Florida Department of Corrections for better mental health services.
The Men
It’s easy to forget that there are millions of people living behind bars. Despite the statistics, the reports from the media, and society’s overall disdain and negative opinions about those who have served time, the fact is, people there reside. I happen to volunteer in a men’s facility, and I get to meet men who are also fathers, sons, brothers, and like the opening quote says, people. I never ask about their crimes, sometimes they share when it comes up during the play therapy sessions. I am reminded each time I have the privilege to visit that the experiences of simply being human touch us all. As I hear stories of trauma, abandonment, and abuse, I’m reminded of the need for help and healing in all places of society, but especially in our prison system.
I can’t explain the joy of a room full of men laughing as they play games, building with LEGO, and throw a ball around the room. I’ve done this long enough now to have had a lot of feedback from participants who contact me afterwards. I hear about improvements in self-confidence, repair and building of relationships, and an overall sense of control in impossibly difficult situations. Neuroscience teaches us that, yes, the brain can change, but there needs to be a sense of safety and motivation before this can happen. Giving people a safe space with the ability to review past experiences to repair places of trauma creates a pathway for a vision of the future that isn’t scary or impossible.
A Final Word
Our world seems like a mess, and in many ways it is. It is easy to feel dwarfed and insignificant when looking at a large mass of something. Each time I board a plane, I look at the rivet just to the right of the door where I am entering, and I reach out and put my finger on it. I know that the individual rivet I am touching, while seemingly insignificant, has the capability to contain a certain amount of tension. And I also know that many rivets when placed just the right distance apart, work together to hold the tension of what it takes for the airplane to ascend and get me safely to my destination. As a counselor, professor, and researcher, I’ve come to learn to love the question, as much as I love good outcomes. Questions keep us restless and searching, and much like the rivets, we can work together to create waves of change in a seemingly chaotic world. I love to see my fellow counselors, play therapists, and community minded neighbors being the rivets in our small and seemingly insignificant ways, to help make our world a better place.