This is the second of two studies that examined self-harm in Western Australian prisons. Data were collected from 71 prisoners who had self-harmed in the previous three days and 71 comparison prisoners for whom there was no evidence of ever having self-harmed in prison. The groups were matched on age, sex, race, custodial status (remanded or sentenced) and placement within the prison. Measures across three –domains (personal background, perceptions of the prison experience and psychological functioning) were administered in a structured interview. The self-harm group reported a significantly greater level of distress, disorder or vulnerability on almost every measure. On no measure did they report lower distress or dysfunction. Two main implications for preventing self-harm are discussed. First, prison authorities need to develop more effective methods for identifying distressed prisoners. Second, strategies should be implemented to minimize prisoners' vulnerability to distress.
Some clinicians working with families with alcohol or other drug problems continue to use the codependency model to guide their practice despite the limited empirical support for this approach. Research into codependency has been hampered by the lack of psychometrically sound instruments. The Holyoake Codependency Index (HCI; G. E. Dear & C. M. Roberts, 2000) is a 13-item self-report measure of codependent traits that has previously shown adequate to high reliability, initial evidence of construct validity, and an internal structure that is consistent across samples. In the 4 studies reported here, the internal structure of the HCI was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis, and further evidence of construct validity was found in that the HCI subscales showed meaningful associations with other psychological and demographic variables.
Yufit and Bongar (1992) argued that a deficiency in coping skills is an important risk factor for suicidal behavior. Dear, Thomson, Hall, and Howells (1998) found that prisoners who had self-harmed in the past 3 days were less likely than a comparison group to have used problem-solving or active cognitive coping strategies to handle the most significant stressor of the past week, but it was not clear whether this represented a difference in the quality of coping responses used. In this study, three groups of blind raters (prisoners, prison officers, and forensic psychologists) rated the coping responses of the participants in Dear et al.'s study. The coping responses of self-harmers were judged less beneficial and more risky. Problem-solving strategies were most often cited as contributing to beneficial outcomes and the catharsis strategies employed by self-harmers were most often judged to be counterproductive. It remains unclear whether prisoners who self-harmed routinely employ poor quality coping strategies or if they simply used poor quality coping on this occasion.
O ne hundred and eight non-fatal self-harm incidents that occurred in the Western Australian prison system over a nine-month period were examined. Descriptive data pertaining to these incidents and the 91 prisoners who enacted them are presented. Self-report data pertaining to motives for self-harming, precipitating factors and level of suicidal intent are also presented. The data are consistent with previous international research. Most incidents involved lacerations of low lethality (although 15% were attempted hangings) and occurred in the prisoner's cell when alone and within a secure prison. Self-report data indicated that prison stressors precipitated most incidents with the motive being to obtain relief from psychological distress. A high level of suicidal intent was reported for one in three incidents. Categories of prisoner at greater risk of self-harm included females, remandees, 18 to 25 year olds, those in special placements (disciplinary, medical, protection) and those in custody for less than one month.
Individuals administered the MCMI-III (Millon, Davis, & Millon, 1997) as part of a custody evaluation have shown elevations on the Desirability (Y), Histrionic (4), Narcissistic (5), and Compulsive (7) scales and low scores on the Debasement (Z) scale (McCann et al., 2001) and all other personality and clinical scales. In this experiment, we instructed participants (N = 138) to look like good parents (fake good) or to answer honestly. The fake-good group scored higher than the honest group on Y, 4, 5, and 7 and lower on scale Z and most other scales. We plotted the mean scale scores of our fake-good group against those of McCann et al.'s custody litigants and found the 2 profiles to be very closely matched and very different from our answer-honestly group's profile. These findings raise the possibility that scale elevations on 4, 5, and 7 by custody litigants are artifacts of faking good rather than pathology in those areas. Assessors should interpret this profile cautiously in custody evaluations.
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