The value of ‘bearing witness’ to desistance

Introduction

Reading Sarah Anderson’s article ‘The Value of “Bearing Witness” to Desistance’ (2016), that explores the importance of bearing witness to offender trauma and its links to desistance, generated a number of responses within us. Firstly, there was the recognition of trauma experiences and how common we felt it was amongst probation staff to encounter trauma narratives. We both hold roles within the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway (NOMS and NHS England, 2015) and the article linked strongly to psychologically informed approaches now being used with some high-risk offenders. Secondly, we reflected on the universal nature of trauma and its long-lasting tremors. While Anderson does not comment on practitioners’ own encounters of trauma, like others who read this, the authors both brought with them their own experience of childhood trauma on joining the service and we will discuss how this has aided and abetted us in work with offenders. In her article Anderson (2016) methodically explores what ‘bearing witness’ entails, and she considers this from different standpoints, including morally and politically. She goes on to consider a practice example drawing on her experience of evaluating a counselling service for women facing complex issues. How we ‘bear witness’ and what this looks like in practice was of particular interest for us. As part of this practitioner response we identify ways that we think probation staff already ‘bear witness’ to a person’s story and we offer some suggestions for directions in practice in this area and how such practice can support effective risk management.

Links to the offender personality disorder pathway

One of our own personal motivations for being involved with the work of the OPD pathway was its central component of understanding early years’ trauma and how these experiences can contribute to harmful behaviours. Key to that motive has been our own different experiences of trauma, and in this piece we share something of how this has shaped our work, with positive and negative aspects. We seek to speak in favour of the psychological understanding that is a key tenet of the OPD strategy and how this provides opportunities for both desistance and effective risk management.

The OPD strategy is essentially focused upon reducing the high harm behaviours linked with serious sexual and violent offending by improving the psychological responses to offenders in both prison and the community (NOMS and NHS England, 2015). Key to this is the tool of case formulations (Radcliff et al., 2018): the evidence and assessment based hypotheses that seek to understand, appreciate and predict offender reactions, traits and behaviour. This is made possible by the building and understanding of significant experiences and their meaning in an individual’s life history; using the interviewing skills of the offender manager to draw out key events and their significance. Ideally this is a collaborative inquiry with the service user, but often in criminal justice settings it can be done at one remove. These formulations are then used to better manage interactions and work with the offender, forming in some cases the basis of a sequenced plan of intervention, or in others simply a guide to cope with difficult exchanges. Thus, such work could be argued to be bearing witness to someone’s distress and trauma by working with them to try and work out how to build a safe relationship, distinct from those in the past that may have been traumatizing.

This meticulous appreciation of an individual’s schema (how we perceive ourselves and others) and traits (ways of behaving or coping) is, we would argue, anathema to a managerialist approach to offender management. Anderson argues that when face-to-face contact is motivated solely by fulfilling prescribed purposes, it silences the lived experience and traumas of the service user. ‘Bearing witness’ to trauma, understanding life narratives can, instead, encourage the development of empathy both for, and within, the offender and, in the taking of life histories, is likely to involve the recounting of significant life events. Indeed, should the work of the OPD pathway be allowed and encouraged to embed itself in the prison and probation systems, its impact on practice may broaden away from the current clear focus on the most serious offenders.

Valuing expertise through life experiences

Victims of childhood trauma are increasingly speaking out. Recent disclosures, often by victims speaking without anonymity, have revealed and uncovered sexual and violent abuse in a variety of institutions from churches to football clubs, from children’s homes to hospitals. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (BBC, 2015) has been mired in questions of scope and scale, coupled with difficult politics, distrust and resignations, but survivors continue to come forward. In many ways society as a whole is being asked to bear witness to their testimony, yet we would suggest that disclosures of childhood trauma of all types have been common in probation interviews for many years (Lee, 2017). Additionally, we know both from our own histories, and those of colleagues, that traumatic events occur to probation workers, who might then find they are working with an offender who has been a victim or who has victimized others in ways which mirror their own story.

In our own careers we have worked with offenders who have committed acts similar to those we had ourselves suffered, and with those who had been similarly victimized. Both of us would reflect that we were fortunate that our social and economic circumstances meant that we have been able to access therapeutic resources that others might not be able to, and were not exposed to the compounding effects of other exclusionary pressures. This does not mean we have been untouched, but both of us would advocate that, within boundaries, the understanding these encounters have given us has acted both as motivation and a tool to help us in bearing witness to the trauma narratives of offenders.

One of us was deeply impacted by the experience of working with offenders who had committed sexual offences, absorbing the details of their acts alongside existing traumatic memories and being tormented by these for years while working. Effectively we re-traumatized ourselves despite enjoying the work and feeling that we had something useful to offer. In hindsight, preparation and support for this work was slim, with training concentrated on the content of programmes rather than on the feelings that may be generated by engaging in such work. There was certainly little consideration that the staff being trained may have been victims themselves, and how to handle such circumstances.

Equally, one of us used our experience of feelings of anger and rage, as well as self-harming behaviours, to enable us to relate to and get alongside others who use instrumental violence or experience suicidal behaviours. It might be said that we should not have engaged in such work, and we have reflected on our effectiveness at those times. That said, it is both discriminatory and unrealistic to expect staff not to have brought similar or different experiences with them in their career, and no one could realistically advocate for such a reality. Instead we would suggest that the focus should be on encouraging staff to be open, with themselves at least, about the experiences which shaped them and on providing therapeutic means to address problems should they arise. There is some evidence of this within the new Probation Qualification in Probation (PQUiP) training, and resources such as limited counselling and other specialist trauma services (NOMS, 2015). However, their use, in our experience, is limited and not openly encouraged.

While there are pockets of supervision within different specialist areas of probation work and spaces for personal reflection, clinical supervision remains an area that is yet to be embedded within the NPS. Arguably, use of the lived experience is an apparatus perhaps underused in probation as a whole. One of us visited a mental health first aid course provided as part of the curriculum of a recovery college, ¹ attended by both mental health staff and patients. The equality and humane nature of such work might yet be difficult to recreate within the boundaries of a criminal justice setting, but one method of achieving this might be the increased employment of peer mentors. This practice is widespread in aligned fields and was being explored in many areas prior to the reforms of 2014 (Clinks, 2011 ); indeed it limps on in Community Rehabilitation Company contracts, but perhaps with limited reach. This is another area where the co-commissioning of services via the OPD pathway may lead to increased use of ‘experts by experience’, such as in the delivery of Knowledge and Understanding Framework training (Bettles et al., 2016).

What does ‘bearing witness’ to trauma look like in practice?

So far, in this response piece, we have considered the value of ‘bearing witness’ and how practitioners can do this by being aware of their own lived experiences and how this might impact upon them within practice and explored why understanding psychological trauma when working with offenders is important. But while we can understand and appreciate the importance of ‘bearing witness’, it may not feel straightforward, and the reality of translating this into supervision is easier said than done. How does a practitioner ‘bear witness’ in practice? Anderson (2016) begins to explore this question within the context of a therapeutic service and questions how straightforward it is for probation staff to take on such a role when it is not the primary focus of our activities. As two practitioners, we are particularly curious about what ‘bearing witness’ looks like in practice. Anderson (2016) acknowledges the use of narrative therapies and that the practitioners that she interviewed had been trained as counsellors drawing on object relations theory. This is not the training background for many probation staff, and we would not advocate probation staff taking on the role of therapist. However, being ‘therapeutic’ in our approach, being psychologically informed, we think, assists probation staff in their work.

We feel that practitioners are ‘bearing witness’ in practice already and that much of what we say here is just naming it. For example, when undertaking a pre-sentence report (PSR) interview or a parole report, or perhaps gathering the service users’ life experiences as part of an OASys (Offender Assessment System) assessment; within those conversations are times when practitioners are ‘bearing witness’ to trauma experiences. These might be an offender talking about never knowing their father, witnessing domestic violence, the loss of a parent or being abused as a child. Remaining alongside the service user, listening empathically and later acknowledging these experiences within the content of the report or assessment, are all validating experiences – bearing witness. We recognize that these might just be brief moments in a session that covers so much else, and that within such tasks, for example PSRs, we acknowledge there is a new culture of speed and timeliness (Robinson, 2017). That said, the important practice element here is that the emotional experience is acknowledged and validated. Such experiences may previously not have been talked about, or if they had, they might have been ignored or had blame placed upon them. This acknowledgement, the validation of a person’s narrative, only takes a small adjustment in practice.

There are other more structured ways of ‘bearing witness’. A common exercise that we have used in both individual supervision and group programmes is the lifeline exercise, often referred to as a life map. This involves plotting experiences from birth to present day in a chronological way, and labelling them as negative, positive or neutral. The life map captures experiences that have occurred at different stages throughout the individual’s life, and the purpose of the exercise is to help build a picture together of how early experiences have impacted upon later developments and explore their emotions and the meaning of these experiences about the different events (Baim and Morrison, 2011; Hylton, 2011). We would argue that this collaborative exercise is ‘bearing witness to desistance’. Anderson refers to the performative aspect of ‘bearing witness’, in that in the act of talking through a life narrative there is a recovery element. When working through a life map with a service user we are validating the experience, providing a voice for the trauma to be heard and acknowledged and often providing the first experience of enabling the individual to start to think through the experiences in a useful way. Questions that are often asked during this exercise include: how did you feel when that happened to you? How did you view yourself at that time? What helped you survive during that period? Such questions help build a recovery narrative and amplify strengths and coping skills.

Another structured exercise that helps bear witness to desistance is drawing a family tree, or what can be referred to as a genogram. This exercise explores family relationships, who the service user lives with and what are identified as significant relationships. The exercise can incorporate what the relationships looked like. The basic family tree is mapped out in the standard fashion of a family tree and includes different generations. Symbols are used to depict gender, relationship status, death, and other characteristics like substance mis-use. Again, this exercise can create narratives about loss, abandonment, family illness, mental illness and the experiences of multiple family relationships. One of the authors completed this exercise with a service user who had been convicted of a violent offence following an argument over a pet. By completing the genogram a painful narrative of premature deaths, parental abandonment and relationship breakdowns started to emerge. The service user began to make sense of their earlier experiences of loss contributing to the current incident and how feelings from those past traumas were linked to the excessively violent response when trying to resolve a conflict over their pet. By bearing witness to this narrative the service user was able to understand their experience and so shift some of the feelings of shame they were holding.

We have talked about what ‘bearing witness’ to help with desistance looks like within assessments and structured interventions. It is also worth noting that ‘bearing witness’ and its value towards helping someone on their desistance journey can also take place in more subtle ways. Anderson explores the concept of ‘bearing witness’ and draws on the work of Cody (2001, as cited in Anderson, 2016), who argues that as well as listening and hearing, it’s being present over time, and being attentive over time to the experience. As probation staff we can be present through visiting the person in prison, regular supervision appointments and home visits and at different stages of their progress. These are all moments when we are present over time. If we can hold in mind how the trauma experiences might impact on the person at different transition stages, we are ‘bearing witness’ in a way that can support desistance and so potentially avoid old sabotaging behaviours that can jeopardize change.

One of us worked with a man whose mother had died when he was a young boy, and as an adult he had a pattern of domestic violence that escalated around the anniversary of the death of his mother. This cycle had over time contributed to him losing employment because of conflicts with his employers. By ‘bearing witness’ to this trauma we were able to think together ways to manage his emotions at the times when he was most vulnerable. Being vigilant to such times helped the man accept and manage the emotions in a healthier way and continue his desistance journey.

Bearing witness: How does this reduce risk of harm?

It has been said the most effective risk management is provided by a practitioner who knows the service user well and is best placed to observe the changes that precipitate an increase in risk and respond to them (Nash, 2012). Such work is at the heart of psychological formulation and lies behind the recent renewed focus within the NPS of risk assessment quality driven by the ‘risk of serious harm’ (ROSH) and ‘risk management plan’ (RMP) audit tool (NOMS, 2016). Simply put, there is no substitute for thorough assessment that works with the service user as a whole, rather than a set of issues and risks to be categorized. We argue that developing a consistent relationship that enables the service users to talk through their life experiences, as outlined above, has potential to reduce risk in the short term by improved risk management. We acknowledge such work can, understandably, create anxiety for probation staff either because of concerns about ‘opening a Pandora’s box’, thus exploring experiences of trauma and feeling overwhelmed by this and anxious not to cause further trauma; or because it is perceived as ‘not offence focused’ and is a distraction from directly challenging high harm behaviours. But Anderson argues: ‘With people who have experienced significant interpersonal and structural violence, we owe it to them to seek to understand why stealing or violence may be seen as the best (or only?) option available to them’ (Anderson, 2016: 413–14).

We believe that seeking to understand – bearing witness to trauma – can contribute to more robust risk management plans. By simultaneously holding both the harmful behaviours and the vulnerabilities of the individual in mind, practitioners can develop a more attuned understanding of why and when a person might displace their strong emotions that are intolerable or overwhelming in a way that harms themselves or others. Practitioners’ anxiety about such work is understandable, and adequate training and supervision play a role here in maintaining the emotional well-being of both service users and staff.

Anderson talks of bearing witness being more than ‘active listening’ but also understanding and helping make sense of the experiences, both of which ‘requires accompaniment over time through their journey’ (Anderson, 2016: 412). Thus, the longer-term effect of bearing witness to the disturbing experiences of service users can help validate their experiences in a way that has perhaps been absent or not previously attended to. The experiences of trauma do not go away and are being tolerated every day, recycling and prolonging distress, generating both avoidant and dramatic behaviours with associated risks. In bearing witness to service users’ trauma we can start and contribute to the process of enabling the individual to learn to live with the trauma in a healthier way. Conversely, by ignoring the trauma we would risk repeating the previous neglect or disregard of the experience at the time of the trauma, perhaps participating in the perpetuation of risk, not reducing it.

Conclusion

It is surely inarguable that traumatic experiences in childhood, where they have not been tended to appropriately at the time, often result in significant difficulties in later life. This is as true for probation staff as it is for probation service users. We have tried to argue, alongside Anderson, that probation staff have a role to play in allowing service users to expand these stories and that, in doing so, we support their desistance journey and reduction of the associated risk. We believe increased consideration should be given to the experiences of the staff asked to do this work with means provided to support their own resilience, but also that they are further encouraged in the first place to consider the relevance of the encounters they have lived through too. We did not share something of our own stories lightly but in the hope that doing so may further the debate around practice and in solidarity with others. The OPD pathway has been discussed in several recent editions of this journal, but here we want to acknowledge that we, as practitioners, value the opportunities it has provided to return to the foreground of practice a more therapeutic and relational approach which adds balance to the structures of risk management. It is our assertion that practitioners can ‘bear witness’ to trauma in ways that, we hope, can be quite simple and straightforward and involve minor adjustments to practice. We feel there is a humanity and a value in seeing the whole narrative of the service user, the myriad of acts and reactions that brought them to the room. Working in ways that hold in mind an individual’s narratives over time can in turn support risk reduction and, we hope, enable us as practitioners to maintain our compassion to assist the desistance journey.