The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry

by Gwen Adshead

It is never easy for two people who don’t know each other to talk about dreadful things.

beautifully articulated by the American philosopher/priest Richard Rohr, ‘If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.’2

Sometimes people are unlikeable because they don’t like themselves, a truism that extends well beyond forensic settings.

Some people who can’t manage their feelings will feel bodily pain or become depressed, internalising their hurt, while those who self-harm or set things alight are externalising it. Both types of activity can be seen as signal fires, calls for urgent assistance. This can become a habit that is hard to break, and it is a risky one. It is a grave error when people dismiss acts of self-harm as attention-seeking – as if that were a bad thing.

Angry parents generate fear in their children, and over a long period chronic fear can impair a child’s self-esteem, their sense of value and their ability to regulate their moods.

the act that stops all conversation.

“In the eyes of Allah there is no such thing as a bad seed. There’s only bad soil, and faith and love can help us to grow, like water and sunlight.”’