The Subjective Experiences of Firesetting by Men With Mild Intellectual Disabilities Detained in a Secure Hospital

Abstract

This article explores the lived experiences of men with mild intellectual disabilities who have deliberately set a fire and are detained in a secure hospital. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore the subjective experiential claims of seven male firesetters with mild intellectual disabilities residing in a forensic intellectual disability hospital. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to interpret participants’ meaning making of their firesetting. Five super-ordinate themes emerged from the analysis: (a) “the importance of the first fire,” (b) “firesetting to escape distress,” (c) “firesetting to enable positive emotional experiences,” (d) “firesetting to communicate with services,” and (e) “Fire Setters Treatment Programme.” The analysis provides an understanding of why some firesetting behaviours emerge and highlights factors that contribute to the maintenance and desistence of repeat firesetting acts. The findings are considered in relation to evolving risk assessment measures and risk reduction strategies for facilitating rehabilitation into community settings.

Keywords

firesetting arson intellectual disability learning disability Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

The most recent figures provided by the Arson Prevention Bureau (2011) estimated that each week in the United Kingdom, there were 2,213 arson attacks, which result in 2 deaths and 53 injuries to people. Damage and destruction to property per week was estimated to involve 20 schools and colleges, 262 homes, 360 businesses and public buildings, and 1,402 cars; the weekly estimated cost of arson to the economy was £53.8 million. Some authors suggest individuals with intellectual disabilities feature more highly in regards to pathological arson (firesetting) than any other group (Devapriam, Raju, Singh, Collacott, & Bhaumik, 2007; Dickens et al., 2007; Hall, Clayton, & Johnson, 2005). Despite this, there is currently a dearth of research to understand the reasons for such firesetting acts and limited evidence for the effectiveness of existing intervention strategies (Lees-Warley & Rose, 2014).

Within the literature, there are currently three published studies that have specifically reported the antecedents to firesetting by people with mild intellectual disabilities. Clare, Murphy, Cox, and Chaplin (1992) reported the precursors to firesetting for one male firesetter with mild intellectual disability. The participant was a 23-year-old man living in a secure specialist inpatient service with a history of arson and making hoax calls to the fire services. The assessment phase focused upon developing an understanding of his developmental and life history, cognitive ability, and psychiatric diagnosis. The participant completed a self-report questionnaire to identify his thoughts and feelings prior to setting fires. This information was used to develop a formulation of his fire-related behaviours and identified that before firesetting, he felt anxious, that people were not listening to him, boredom, sadness, and anger.

In a non-randomised case-control study involving seven male firesetters and three female firesetters with mild intellectual disabilities, Murphy and Clare (1996) found the most common triggers before setting fires were feelings of anger, not feeling listened to/lack of attention, feelings of sadness, and depression and auditory hallucinations. As the first published U.K. study to specifically investigate the factors for firesetting by a small sample of individuals, this research offered preliminary knowledge for clinicians conducting risk assessment and therapeutic interventions in forensic intellectual disability services. However, a limitation of this study is that participants were asked to identify and rate their antecedents to firesetting from a list of predetermined statements. This suggests that important clinical information related to precursors to firesetting may have been missed by not accessing the participants’ individual accounts of fire-related acts.

A study by Kelly, Goodwill, Keene, and Thrift (2009) utilised a retrospective case-control study to ascertain historical risk factors associated with firesetting by 10 men with mild intellectual disabilities living in inpatient forensic services. The results indicated that childhood experiences of fire (“fire play,” “personal experience of fire,” “symbolic significance of fire,” and “vicarious experience of fire”) and the participants’ perceived inability to effect social change in their own lives (“external locus of control,” “low confidence in dealing with conflict,” and/or “avoidance of confrontation”) were significant historical risk factors for arson. Limitations associated with the study’s findings included the small sample size, the difficulties inherent in retrospectively identifying and classifying antecedents for firesetting behaviours, and the lack of triangulation of the data in the absence of talking to the individual.

The findings of the above studies relate to just 18 male firesetters and 3 female firesetters with mild intellectual disabilities and therefore current clinical knowledge regarding fire-related behaviours by this group remains scant. The use of self-report questionnaires and retrospective case reviews to identify antecedents to firesetting behaviour further limits the reliability and validity that can be attributed to these findings. Furthermore, none of the studies have explored participants’ actual lived experience of firesetting and therefore knowledge regarding the meaning making of firesetters with intellectual disabilities remains unknown. To date, the authors are unaware of any published studies, which have used qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of this group of individuals.

In the present study, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Larkin & Thompson, 2011) was used to explore the meaning making of deliberate acts of firesetting by men with mild disabilities detained in one forensic learning disability hospital.

Method

Prior to the study, ethical approval was granted by a U.K. National Health Service (NHS) Research Ethics Committee and the Research and Development Department of the participating NHS Trust.

Design

The qualitative approach employed in this study was IPA (Larkin & Thompson, 2011). IPA is concerned with phenomenology and is focused on attempting to understand the subjective experiences and psychological meanings an individual assigns to a specific event. The interpretative element of IPA acknowledges the researcher’s approach as entailing a double hermeneutic process, which involves making sense of how participants have made sense of their lived experience. IPA proposes an idiographic approach to understanding experience and therefore recommends that selected samples typically include six to eight participants and are comparatively homogeneous. IPA is being used increasingly in research with people who have intellectual disabilities and is perceived as an important method of hearing their voice (Beail & Williams, 2014). However, there are challenges such as ensuring that the participants are able to understand the process and content of the interview. Adaptations and further explanation may also have to be provided (e.g., visual aids) but in such a way that modifications do not threaten the integrity of the research process.

Participants

To maximise the homogeneity of the sample, all of the participants were recruited from medium and low secure units based within one forensic intellectual disability hospital and were all detained under the Mental Health Act (1983, amended 2007). A purposive sampling approach was used to enable the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) at the service to identify men aged 18 years and above, with a mild or moderate intellectual disability, who have deliberately set a fire, and who were undertaking or had completed the services’ individual or group treatment for firesetting behaviour. Prior to commencing the research, a meeting was held with managers from the hospital who were independent to the study. The meeting was held by the researcher to explain the purpose of the research, to share the information sheet and capacity to consent process, and to discuss the role of clinicians in supporting individuals to make informed decisions. Following the meeting, eligible participants were contacted by a clinician who they knew and invited to take part in a study about their acts of firesetting. Individuals who expressed an interest in participating were provided with a participant information sheet highlighting each step of the research process and the rights of the individual. Participants were supported to read the information sheet and to discuss the contents. Each individual was given a minimum of 1 day to consider whether they would like to take part and were then asked if they were interested in participating.

The MDT identified nine individuals who were eligible to participate in the study; however during review, two men were excluded from the study due to the risk of crisis or burden associated with taking part. The remaining seven men were approached by clinicians assigned to their care and all provided informed consent to participate in the study. The recruited participants were aged between 23 and 46 years (M = 36.3; SD = 10.98), had a Full Scale Intellectual Quotient ranging from 56 to 70, and were all White British. The key demographic and offence characteristics for each participant are provided in Table 1 and were collated from case notes review conducted by the Psychology Department at the hospital. The information was not provided to the authors until the analysis had been completed, as this was deemed necessary to minimise the influence of researcher bias and “bracket off” knowledge regarding the participants while constructing the themes.

Table 1.

Key Demographic and Offence Characteristics of Participants.

Participant (age)	FSIQ	Psychiatric diagnosis	Childhood trauma	Firesetting history (age)	Offending history, non-firesetting	Treatment type
Bruce (46)	68, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability		Physical abuse inter-familialPhysical abuse extra-familialSexual abuse extra-familial	Childhood—ReportedSet fire to a medical cupboard and attempted to prevent entry to the room/fire in a church hall (14)/several fires on his school campus and nearby woods (15)Adulthood—ReportedSet fire to a local community building (20)Child convictionsArson—Fire to toilet seat in school2 year supervision order (12)Arson—fire in a school gym (15)Adult convictionsArson—Set fire at training centre (21)	AdulthoodSexual offence	PreviousEmotional regulationTraumaSexual offendingConsultation with staffThinking skillsFire Setters Treatment ProgrammeCurrentMaintenance sessionsTrauma and emotional regulationOffender Relationship Treatment Programme
Daniel (45)	70, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability		Physical abuse inter-familial	Adulthood—ReportedAlleged set two fires in a hostel he was residing in (19)/set fire to a dustbin resulting in a shop blaze (24)Adult convictionsArson × 2 (34)CautionArson × 5 (37)	AdulthoodBurglary and theft—Non-dwelling × 6Breach of the peaceDrunk and disorderly × 2Criminal damageCommon assault	PreviousMotivational enhancementAnxiety managementFire Setter Treatment Programme—not completedIndividual offence specific work
Eddie (43)	70, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability	Recurrent depressive disorder	None recorded	Adult convictionsArson with intent to endanger life (25)Arson (38)	None recorded	PreviousFire Setter Treatment ProgrammeIndividual therapyIndividual CAT therapy
Francis (27)	58, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability	Unstable borderline personality disorder	None recorded	Child convictionArson (16)	ChildhoodCriminal damage × 2Theft from personObtaining property by deceptionBreach of conditional discharge × 2TheftCommon assaultAdulthoodDrunk and disorderly × 2False information causing Bomb HoaxDisorderly behaviour or threatening harassment alarm or distressCommunicating false informationASBO	PreviousEmotional recognitionThinking skills programmeFire Setters Treatment Programme
Jason (24)	65, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability	Neurofibro-matosis type 1	Sexual abuse inter-familial	Child convictionsArson × 2 and attempted Arson (13)Arson × 4 (14)Adult convictionsArson—Fire to toilets in a library (18)Arson—Fire to a flat where his friend was a tenant (21)	Offences aged 15 to 19Offences against property × 23Theft and kindred offences × 3Offences against the person × 2Offences related to police/courts/prisons × 4Miscellaneous × 2Public disorder × 3Possessing a loaded/unloaded air weapon in a public place	PreviousFire Setters Treatment ProgrammeIndividual trauma-related therapyCurrentIndividual DBT skills teaching sessionsDBT primary therapy
Phillip (23)	57, WAIS, mild intellectual disability		Physical abuse inter-familial	Childhood—ReportedSet fire to the carpet in his parents’ home (4)/fire to a bin at a bus stop (10)/fire in his children’s care home (15)Adulthood—ReportedSet fire in a large bin in the car park of care facility/set fire to his cell while remanded in prison (18)Adult convictionArson—Reckless as to whether life was endangered	ChildhoodDamage to shop windows and buses by throwing stonesDamaged neighbours cars with his room keyBroke a telephone kiosk windowAdulthoodDamage to property by breaking and dismantling objects	PreviousFire Setters Treatment ProgrammeOffence specific treatment
Robert (46)	56, WAIS-III, mild intellectual disability		Beaten with a belt, attacked with a knife, and made homeless by family	Adult convictionsArson—Probation order (32)Arson—Reckless Arson (39)	AdulthoodDrunk and disorderly × 8Carrying a knife × 3Misbehaving in the street putting other people in fear × 11Common assault	PreviousExecutive functioning assessment and therapy relating to offenceIndividual work for substance misuse managementCurrentIndividual work for substance misuseFire Setters Treatment Programme

Note. FSIQ = Full Scale Intelligence Quotient; WAIS = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale; CAT = Cognitive Analytic Therapy; ASBO = anti-social behaviour order; DBT = Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.

Procedure

Recruitment

Eligible participants were contacted by a clinician who they knew and invited to take part in the study. Individuals who expressed an interest in participating were provided with an “easy read” participant information sheet detailing each step of the research process and their rights (Department of Health, 2010). After reading the information sheet, each individual was asked four standardised questions to check their understanding of the study and their capacity to provide informed consent to take part. The participants were asked the following questions: “Do you have to take part in this study?” “What will Gemma talk to you about?” “Will Gemma use your name in her report?” and “Can you change your mind later?” This approach was taken as Arscott, Dagnan, and Kroese (1998) advocate the necessity to assess the understanding of adults with intellectual disabilities about a study prior to their involvement. Of the seven individuals approached, all answered the four capacity questions correctly and all provided consent.

Interview topic guide and format

A semi-structured interview guide was devised by the authors and focused on eliciting each participant’s experience of firesetting and the personal meanings they attached to their firesetting behaviour. In line with IPA recommendations, a semi-structured guide was developed by the authors as a framework to generate dialogue and facilitate conversation about salient themes associated with firesetting. For example, “tell me about a fire you have set,” “what did you want to happen?” and “what happened after you set the fire?” As the participants had mild intellectual disabilities, prompts were also used to help the participants make sense of the question, to elicit information, and to break down complex ideas. A copy of the interview topic guide is provided in Table 2.

Table 2.

Interview Topic Guide.

The individual’s experience of firesetting

I would like to ask you some questions about when you set a fire

Firesetting—Prompts—How it was carried out?

• Tell me about the fire you set • Why do you think you set a fire? • Where did you set a fire/did you know the place/the person who lived there/worked there? • How did you set the fire? What did you use to set the fire?

Firesetting—Prompts—Why it seemed important to set a fire?

• Why did you set the fire? What did you want to happen? • Had you thought about setting the fire? • How did you feel before you set the fire? • How did you feel when the fire was burning?

Firesetting—Prompts—Consequences

• What did you do after you set the fire/what happened after you set the fire? • How did setting the fire make you feel? • What changed after you set the fire? Where you lived, relationships with your friends, relationships with your family? Relationship with mental health services? • How do you feel about setting a fire now?

Each participant was interviewed on one occasion which took place in a private room at the hospital. Each interview was digitally audio-recorded. The shortest interview took 22 min and the longest interview 1 hr and 38 min. Following the interview, a discussion was held with each participant regarding how they would access support if required and this was shared with the clinician assigned to their care. Entries of participation were recorded in the participants’ nursing and psychology notes alongside details of whom to contact if the participant requested additional support.

Analytic Process

To ensure anonymity, participant data were assigned a pseudonym and any identifying information was removed during transcription. In line with IPA guidelines, the iterative and inductive component of analysis was undertaken systematically in a series of six non-linear stages (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). In Stages 1 and 2, each transcript was analysed to enable immersion in the narrative and subjective experience of each participant and phenomenological coding was conducted to capture thoughts regarding descriptive, linguistic, and conceptual comments. Stages 3 to 5 focused on consideration of emerging themes grounded within the participant’s subjective understanding of their firesetting acts. This enabled preliminary interpretation and integration of psychological knowledge to understand how the participant experienced and made sense of their firesetting behaviours (Smith, 2004). These were used to identify similarities, differences, and commonalities within the participant’s subjective experience and a list of initial themes were recorded in the order presented by the participant. The final stage of analysis involved reviewing and comparing participants’ transcripts to identify theme clusters and final interpretations reflecting their collective experiential claims.

To increase the plausibility and credibility of interpretations, the coding and emergent themes were reviewed and discussed by the authors and also with an independent researcher with expertise in conducting IPA research. This took place to enable discussion of alternative perspectives and considerations of the experiential claims of the participants and to corroborate that interpretations were grounded in the data. Although this approach sought to reduce researcher bias by providing triangulation and validity checking, the resultant themes remain reflective of the researchers’ subjective interpretation. IPA acknowledges that other researchers may hold alternative interpretations; however, this is perceived as an inevitable bias inherent in interpretative approaches (Smith et al., 2009).

Results

Figure 1 illustrates the structure of the super-ordinate themes and corresponding subthemes. The number of participants whose narratives contributed to each theme is presented in parenthesis.

Figure 1.

Structure of super-ordinate themes and corresponding subthemes.

Super-Ordinate Theme 1: The Importance of the First Fire

This super-ordinate theme provides a foundation for understanding the function of participants’ first experience of firesetting and its relationship to the maintenance and longevity of future firesetting behaviours. All participants chose to present their story of firesetting in chronological order, and while each experience was idiosyncratic, there was a strong sense that participants needed to start with the context in which firesetting initially occurred. It seemed natural for participants to begin here, and it appeared that, perhaps through their experiences of the legal system and engagement in therapy, they had repeated this narrative many times.

The participants’ provided shared experiential claims that the first act of firesetting had occurred as a reaction to enduring distress experienced in the context of “abusive childhood experiences.” Five participants described that their first fire occurred as a young child and had reflected their attempt to cope with overwhelming feelings of vulnerability and perceived helplessness. Jason and Bruce interpreted that their firesetting had arisen as a consequence of experiencing inter- and extra-familial childhood sexual abuse.

Sexual abuse, yeah so it started off from a young age, and ever since then, it just started with different things, it started when I was at home and then it started when I used to go out in the car . . . so I’d go to school feeling scared and I used to, er, basically I wasn’t eating, I used to hide food cause, er, it was one of those, I used to, er, basically, er, keep, telling the social services that er, that I wanted to go into care . . . the only way to deal with it was fires, basically, fire was to get away from, er, the trouble at home. (Jason)

When Jason shares his experience of sexual abuse, he conveys a sense that it pervaded all aspects of his life, in both the frequency of the abuse itself and the permanency of distress within his life. Implicit in his story is the sense of desperation he conveys in trying to indirectly communicate his emotional experience by restricting his food consumption. He describes his first fire act occurred when he perceived other attempts to escape his experience had been unsuccessful, for example, requesting to go into care. Within Jason’s narrative, there is an essence of perceived inevitability, that fire was the “only way” to “get away.”

Phillip and Robert interpreted that their first firesetting act had occurred in childhood as a response to experiencing and witnessing domestic abuse.

I was 6 or 7, I set the back of my dad’s, my mom, and my dad’s carpet alight, at the back of the tele . . . because they were, were always fighting and they never fed us properly, I kept eating frozen sausages and chips out the freezer. That’s why I did it, trying, trying to make them stop. (Phillip)

Phillip’s narrative conveys a powerful image of a young child trapped within an abusive home environment. His integration of a direct example of his neglect demonstrates the severity of his negative childhood experiences and emphasises the distressing circumstances in which his first fire occurred. Phillip offers a direct interpretation that his first act was his attempt to attract attention toward this neglect and “stop” enduring parental conflict.

Jason and Phillip provided narratives regarding the “responses of services to the first act.” This highlighted, to some extent, where the emerging relationship between the first act of firesetting and repeated firesetting behaviours may have been intermittently reinforced. Both described their first fire served its intended purpose as it enabled them to be removed from home environments and achieve desired safety in care.

Yeah, so I told them that, I want to go into care, then, er, er, and then I went into care er, after I told the social services that I wanted to go into care. I stopped setting fires for a while. (Jason)

Jason offers a subtle interpretation that once in care his firesetting behaviours ceased “for a while” and conveys a sense that firesetting was effective, at least in the short term, and successful in eliciting support from external others. Both Jason and Phillip’s experience of being taken into care may have established a belief that fire summons services who then offer protection from unmanageable situations.

Bruce described he had lived in care and had set his first fire in the kitchen of his children’s home when he was 11 years old. He described he was being bullied and sexually abused by staff and had perceived that firesetting would enable him a “way out”:

I didn’t like it there, I was getting bullied and there was other stuff going on between that, with sexual abuse. So I thought the way out of it was to set a fire in the kitchen. Didn’t help . . . I said, “I set the fire because I wanted out of here. And you lot weren’t listening.” And that’s the reason why I did it, but no one listened, so that, that was when I set more fires, in the garage, in the corridor, in a dorm I think. (Bruce)

When Bruce provides this account, he expresses the function of his fire was to influence his move from the children’s home following his experiences of extra-familial sexual abuse. His narrative indicates firesetting initially attracted attention and enabled him to express his distress to staff; however, Bruce perceived no further action was taken and described escalating the frequency of his firesetting behaviours to elicit further support. For Daniel, his first experience of firesetting occurred at the age of 18 when he had observed a group of unknown youths setting fire to a car and described feelings of “excitement,” “happiness,” and “joy” in response to watching the fire burn. For Francis and Daniel, it seems that observing fire was powerful in negating distressing emotions and evoking an intensely pleasurable experience.

Super-Ordinate Theme 2: Firesetting to Escape Distress

This super-ordinate theme explores participants’ narratives regarding their repeat acts of firesetting. It details the pertinent emotional experiences of participant’s prior to fire-related behaviours and includes interpretations that firesetting was experienced as a solution to rid the self of negative emotion. While the claims of participants prior to firesetting acts were idiosyncratic, there was commonality in their emotional experience of becoming overwhelmed and feeling unable to cope. Some participants also described engaging in a repertoire of co-morbid behaviours alongside firesetting, which emerged as attempts to further cope with unmanageable emotions. Behaviours reported by participants included substance misuse and risk-taking behaviours.

Participants identified firesetting had sometimes occurred as a reaction to feeling overwhelmed by feelings of “pressure and depression.” This was often described in relation to feeling unable to manage with the demands of daily living alongside feeling unable to cope with overwhelming negative emotions. Robert described one act of firesetting had occurred in the context of consuming large amounts of alcohol on a daily basis to mediate feelings of pressure and depressed mood. In his narrative, he described feeling unable to cope and had set a fire in his home with the intention of committing suicide:

I set fire to the settee and I just sat on it . . . I was just drinking heavily and err, I didn’t know where to turn, I didn’t know what to do, it’s this and that, I’ve got all this pressure, I’m missing my children, my son got took in care, I had a big bust up with my mum, and then things got, like, on top of me, and, and, erm, I was upset and sad, erm, I was sad and scared, that’s why I set fire to my house. Basically, I wanted to end my life at that time, basically to kill myself, erm, a, basically it was just a cry for help really. (Robert)

When Robert provides this narrative, he conveys overwhelming desperation and confusion about how to manage feelings of loss, fear, and low mood. There is a sense that Robert had relied upon excessive alcohol use as a coping strategy; however, it appears that this served to exacerbate his distress and compounded his ability to think rationally. He clearly articulates a number of key precursors to his firesetting act and it seems these accumulated to a crisis point where he intended to commit suicide.

The feelings of “isolation and desperation” were commonly identified by most participants as significant precursors to some of their firesetting acts. Jason described that while in care, he had stopped firesetting for “a while”; however, when he experienced abuse-related intrusions, he re-engaged in firesetting behaviours to manage feeling overwhelmed:

I still had sexual abuse on my mind, so I had no chance and I didn’t think no one cared for me, you don’t feel like no one’s out there, and no one wants to listen to ya, so you feel all alone. In the end they [Social Services] did find out what’s the matter with me, but, but, it was too difficult to deal with, so, so from then it’s just on my mind all the time . . . I just went crazy. I was mixing, basically with alcohol, with drugs. I got into more fires and I got into drugs and er, alcohol, and er, climbing roofs. I was doing bigger things, trying bigger things, I, I was trying to look for bigger things to burn until I get caught really bad. (Jason)

When Jason expresses this emotional experience, he conveys a sense that, much like his abuse experience, he felt powerless in response to trauma memories, which pervaded his life. His narrative evokes a sense of isolation and desperation, in which substance misuse, risky behaviours, and firesetting emerged as repetitive and cyclical behaviours to dampen distress and spur services to offer support. As highlighted by Jason, disclosure of his abuse only served to increase his distress and as a consequence, his firesetting behaviour increased in frequency and magnitude as he perpetually attempted to cope with intense feelings. His firesetting to alert services appears to reflect his hope that they would help him escape distress associated with his abusive experiences, perhaps as they had done following his first fire as a child.

Most of the participants also described experiences of “anger and frustration” within their experiential claims of some firesetting behaviours. Participants often associated angry feelings with their perception of being ignored or mistreated by perceived powerful others or services.

I set Burger King’s bins on fire . . . cause I had an argument with the manager of Burger King over a burger that wasn’t done properly, we had an argument, I told him I was going to get my own back on him, he said it is cooked, I said no it’s not because it’s pink in the middle. They told me to get out, and, and, then I said I was going to burn his bin. So I went round the back and burnt his two bins. (Francis)

Francis’ narrative creates a sense that he perceived he had been treated unfairly by the manager and firesetting emerged as an impulsive angry reaction to feeling victimised. For Francis, this closely resembles his first act of firesetting where he set a fire following ongoing incidents of bullying by a neighbour.

Super-Ordinate Theme 3: Firesetting Enables Positive Emotional Experiences

This super-ordinate theme provides participants’ meaning making regarding the acquisition of positive emotional experiences during and immediately following firesetting acts. It relates to participants’ claims that firesetting enabled feelings of being in control and to experience intense sensory stimulation associated with watching their fires and witnessing the fire brigade arriving at the scene. It appears heightened arousal enabled momentary escapism and temporarily dampened the experience of the enduring distressing antecedents described previously. Throughout the experiential claims of Jason and Bruce, they commonly referred to feelings of “power and control” and interpreted the physical magnitude of their fires as symbolic of their competency over negative internal states.

Fire, it helps you get in control of all these feelings inside, cus your mind’s set and you can sit around and just, you know think to yourself this is better . . . if it’s a small fire then it’s not that happy, basically, it’s like you know, sad, cause you go through different fires so sad, frustrated, yeah, if its small it’s sad but the bigger they are it gets exciting, then goes to ecstatic if it’s a massive one. Basically, I’d light them then stand around and watch it, cause I find it exciting, cause the noise what it makes and that, and so I used to watch them and then I used to run when I used to hear sirens. (Jason)

Within Jason’s narrative, he provides a direct interpretation that firesetting helped him to “feel better” and gain “control” over internal distress. He describes the sensory experiences of the size and sound of the fire as directly associated with the intensity of his positive emotional experience and, while firesetting occurred in a context of distress, there is a sense that this enabled temporary feelings of gratification.

For most of the participants, the “sensory stimulation” they experienced during and immediately following firesetting acts was powerful in evoking a pleasurable experience. For Phillip, Daniel, and Francis, the arrival of the fire brigade was a fundamental aspect of achieving positive affect in the context of momentarily escaping ongoing distressing antecedents. Each described how they had chosen to remain within a short distance of the fires they had set to watch the fire brigade at work.

I stand, I stand and watch the fire engines putting it out, I just watch em . . . I love, I love to see the fire engines coming out to put the fires out . . . All of it, the sound, the speed. (Phillip)

Phillip was emphatic when he articulated his “love” of seeing the fire engines and associated this with his sensory experiences of the sound and the speed at which they arrived at the scene.

Super-Ordinate Theme 4: Firesetting to Communicate With Services

This super-ordinate theme was evident, to varying degrees, from the first act of firesetting and concerns participants’ meaning making of firesetting as an attempt to either seek emotional containment from professional services or as an attempt to communicate dissatisfaction at the decisions made by services. Throughout their narratives, participants conveyed a sense of struggle between their feelings of vulnerability and perceived inability to communicate their needs with services.

Participants described “feeling unable to manage alone” in their daily life and described firesetting had occurred as they strived to convey this to services. Robert and Eddie described that following a previous act of firesetting, they had both received probation orders, which had enabled them to receive support from a variety of professionals. Robert explained that the removal of services had occurred following a conversation initiated by him. He recalled that he had informed probation services he felt under pressure to maintain his job role and attend appointments at an outpatient’s psychiatry clinic. Robert stated that as a consequence of this conversation, he was discharged from probation. It appears that while this relieved feeling pressure in the short term, Robert quickly began to feel overwhelmed.

I was on probation, probation order for psychiatric treatment, and, erm, I, I got found a job by the dole. But then it was too much, so, I went down to probation services, I said “I can’t come here right, to do, to do, to go and see the doctor and go to work at the same time.” Then my probation officer erm, erm, asked me to come into probation services and they discharge me! And then things got like, on top of me, and I set this fire. I was scared that I weren’t going to get any help . . . I wanted to get admitted to hospital, that’s what I thought, so basically, they could treat me for depression. I weren’t expecting to go down this sentence I weren’t expecting to go down, I was expecting right to get another chance if you get what I mean, I was expecting right to get another probation order, when I get psychiatric help again, talking to a doctor, but that weren’t the option. (Robert)

In this narrative, Robert conveys a sense that he felt limited in his capacity to cope with feelings of pressure and despite being aware of needing help, he was fearful that he would not get this; in this context, it appears that he was unable to identify pro-social ways to access help. It seems Robert believed that as he had received help following a previous incident of firesetting, a further fire would enable him to re-engage with services and receive help for his depression. Robert’s narrative evokes a sense that sentencing came as a shock to him. In contrast to seeking help, participants’ also described firesetting had occurred as a means to demonstrate their “dissatisfaction with responses from services” and the decisions made by the services supporting them. Examples provided by participants indicated the function of firesetting was often to change their residency or exert influence over the decisions made by services about their accommodation. Daniel reported committing acts of firesetting to escape feeling “unhappy” and “lonely” in a community intellectual disability home where he had lived for 12 years. Daniel interpreted the function of his firesetting was “to get arrested, to not to have to go back” to the community home. At many different times within his narrative, Daniel conveyed intently wanting to live with his brother and described feeling “angry” toward his residential service for not “allowing” this to happen. Within his experiential claims, it seemed Daniel perceived firesetting would enable him to live with his sibling and would consequently eliminate overwhelming feelings of unhappiness.

Super-Ordinate Theme 5: The Fire Setters Treatment Programme (FSTP)

This super-ordinate theme presents participant’s descriptions of their experiences of completing the FSTP. Although they were not requested to do so, six of the participants chose to offer their reflections on their therapeutic alliance with facilitators of the FSTP; their perception regarding the dangers of fire following engagement in the FSTP; and their attitudes toward future firesetting behaviours. As the participants had volunteered to share their perspectives, it was felt important to include their claims as it clearly held personal significance to them and their lived experience of firesetting behaviours.

The participants were keen to report their “therapeutic alliance with the FSTP team” and their positive emotional experiences of working with the facilitators. What became evident within the narratives of participants was their perception of being “helped” and “supported” during treatment sessions and by the team more generally. The shared experiential claims of the participants created a strong perception of them feeling contained by the team, despite participants experiencing individual challenges in therapy.

Participants also expressed their “awareness of the dangers of fire,” which they perceived had developed during participation in the FSTP. It appeared that participants were most struck by learning about the dangers of fire and observing educational videos contained within the programme. Within their narratives, it appeared that participant’s had not previously considered the consequences of firesetting acts for others, particularly the cost to human life.

They helped me here, to, to see that when I set the fire I was happy, but after, when I was here I felt angry because I was putting the people in danger. (Phillip)

The participants also conveyed their current “attitudes toward future firesetting behaviour.” Each was emphatic when they expressed they would not set fires in the future.

Discussion

The analysis identified five main super-ordinate themes within the data which reflected a natural interlinked progression in participants’ narratives from the significance of the first firesetting event; experiential claims regarding repeat acts of firesetting; and their reflections on engaging in the FSTP. Although participants’ experiences were idiosyncratic, they described committing firesetting acts in reaction to feelings of overwhelming distress, to achieve positive emotional experiences, and to seek support and containment from various professional services.

In Super-Ordinate Theme 1, “the importance of the first fire,” the shared experiential claims of the participants indicated the first act occurred in response to childhood abusive experiences and unfulfilling relationships in young adulthood. The narratives of participants in this study echoed the findings of Kelly et al. (2009) who found historical risk factors for childhood experiences of fire in the backgrounds of men with mild intellectual disabilities.

The participants also conveyed feeling limited in their capacity to influence relationships and social circumstances via pro-social means and appeared to make sense of their first fire as an attempt to effect change in distressing situations. The shared claims of the participants also suggested the responses they received from authority figures and the emergency services may have contributed in establishing beliefs regarding the function of fire; that firesetting at times, enabled varying degrees of support from professional services. These findings offer support to the findings of Kelly et al. (2009) who found a historical risk factor for fire-related behaviours by male firesetters with mild intellectual disabilities was a perceived inability to change aspects of a situation or their social environment.

From the claims of the participants, it seems their first experience of firesetting laid the foundation for a trajectory of firesetting beliefs which became interwoven within recurrent episodes of firesetting behaviour. This was reflected in Super-Ordinate Theme 2, “firesetting to escape distress,” which indicated repeat acts of firesetting resonated, to some degree, the emotional, contextual, and functional aspects of the first fire-related experience. From participants’ experiential claims, it was apparent that repeat firesetting emerged within a context of trying to escape enduring distress associated with feelings of pressure, depression, isolation, desperation, anger, and frustration.

For some participants, firesetting also featured alongside substance misuse and appeared to reflect a further behavioural attempt to mediate overwhelming distress. Previous studies have highlighted the predominance of negative emotional states experienced by people with mild intellectual disabilities prior to firesetting acts to include sadness, depression, and anger (Clare et al., 1992; Murphy & Clare, 1996).

Participants’ claims regarding “firesetting and positive emotional experiences” were highlighted in Super-Ordinate Theme 3. Participants’ narratives indicated that during and immediately following firesetting acts, they experienced feelings of control and sensory stimulation, which enabled momentary escape from enduring negative emotions and overwhelming situations. It is likely the effect of temporary, yet intense positive emotions would have dampened the negative emotional antecedents experienced by participants. This perhaps lends further support to the notion that from the first act, participant’s developed a belief that firesetting enabled the acquisition of positive outcomes, albeit temporarily, and served to intermittently reinforce and maintain future firesetting as an effective behaviour for escaping feelings of distress and powerlessness. This finding offers a valuable insight into potential sources of emotional reinforcement of repeat firesetting behaviours.

In Super-Ordinate Theme 4, “firesetting to communicate with services,” some participants described feeling unable to manage their daily life experiences, whereas others described feeling dissatisfied with their living arrangements. There was a strong sense that participants experienced feelings of powerlessness and a lack of agency to exert influence within their lives. This lends support to the findings of Kelly et al. (2009) who found that men with mild intellectual disabilities often presented with an “external locus of control,” “low confidence in dealing with conflict,” and/or “avoidance of confrontation.”

In reflecting upon their firesetting journey, some participants chose to offer their experiential claims regarding engagement in the “FSTP.” These narratives were presented in Super-Ordinate Theme 5 and conveyed participants’ meaning making regarding their positive therapeutic alliances with the FSTP team; their developed understanding regarding the dangerousness of fire; and their perspectives that they would not engage in future acts of firesetting. None of the previous research in the field has reported the perspectives of their participants following engagement in firesetter treatment and therefore this theme provides initial insight into the experiences of this group.

This study indicated that participants’ first act of firesetting often occurred in relation to childhood abuse or difficulties in interpersonal relationships, with repeat acts reflecting their attempts to cope with pervasive negative emotional states and to attract the attention of supportive professionals. This emphasises the necessity for community services to actively work with individuals to identify emerging difficulties and the importance of implementing collaborative preventive strategies with families and care systems in the context of a corroborative multi-agency approach to reduce firesetting risk. From these results there was little to support the hypothesis that firesetting, previously diagnosed as pyromania, may be the expression of gratification of deep sexual inhibition. Doley (2003) has reviewed the literature and also found a lack of evidence for such a link.

The current study contributes to the existing evidence base by further developing our clinical understanding regarding the lived experiences of a sample of men with mild intellectual disabilities and offers insight into the intricate interplay between why some firesetting behaviours emerge and how they are maintained. More generally, the study also offers support to the utility of IPA methodology with offenders with mild intellectual disabilities.

The study utilised an IPA methodology and the sample was purposively selected from one forensic intellectual disability hospital to increase similarity between participants. Although this fits with the recommendations of IPA regarding the homogeneity of the sample, the generalisability of the study findings is limited by the small sample size and the context in which the study took place. It is also plausible that as the participants were completing or had completed the FSTP, their individual interpretations may have reflected, to some degree, the content and meaning making of firesetting that they had taken from their participation in the group by the intervention. This may further limit the transferability of the study findings. As the participants had mild intellectual disabilities, their experiential claims and meaning making was, at times, fragmented and limited by individual cognitive deficits, communication difficulties, and some participant’s reduced ability to describe and reflect upon their emotional experiences. This impacted upon the level of explanation that could be assigned to participant’s idiosyncratic understanding of their fire-related behaviours. The interpretations provided are based on the reflexivity of the researcher, and therefore it is possible that other researchers may hold different perspectives regarding the experiential claims and salient emotional experiences of the participants. To minimise this source of bias, the themes were credibility and validity checked by others and a reflexive diary was maintained by the researcher to “bracket off” prior perspectives of firesetting behaviour. Finally, the issue of sampling bias is an important consideration. While the sample were informed on several occasions that participation would not affect their treatment or care, it is possible that they may have agreed to participate in the study as they felt they were expected to do so. Alternatively, the study findings indicated this group of participants often felt ignored by services, and therefore participation may have enabled a sense of mastery in being able to express their emotional experiences of firesetting to a wider audience. It is also important to note that the group sampled in this research was generally similar to the groups that were included in previous research as described in the introduction, being the recipients of forensic services. As such a broader range of individuals should be included in future research.

Based on the experiential claims of participants in this study, a number of future research opportunities have been identified. The present study could be replicated with children, young people, and women with intellectual disabilities; firesetters who have not yet engaged in therapy; and those with average or above intellectual functioning. Recruiting samples from a variety of community services, prisons, and secure services may also identify differences or similarities in the meaning making of firesetting behaviours based on the context in which engagement with services has occurred. This would enable further understanding of the experiential claims of firesetters and would allow comparison of meaning making across subsamples of participants and settings. There is further scope in exploring participants’ narratives regarding beliefs about the function of firesetting. This could explore in greater detail if a relationship exists between attachment style, relationships with services, and fire-related acts and whether different themes emerge if the first act occurred in childhood or as an adult.

Conducting research in these areas could provide pertinent information for developing practice-based firesetter risk assessment methods and standardised treatment interventions in both community services and secure settings. This would further enhance our current understanding of how to best support individuals and further develop our theoretical and clinical understanding of firesetting behaviour. This may go some way toward bridging the gap between the paucity of current evidence and the actual lived experiences of people with mild intellectual disabilities who set fires.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

Arscott

Dagnan

Kroese

B. S.

(1998). Consent to psychological research by people with an intellectual disability. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 11, 77-83.

Arson Prevention Bureau. (2011). Available from www.arsonpreventionbureau.org.uk

Beail

Williams

(2014). Using qualitative methods in research with people who have intellectual disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 27, 85-96.

Clare

I. C.

Murphy

G. H.

Cox

Chaplin

E. H.

(1992). Assessment and treatment of fire-setting: A single-case investigation using a cognitive-behavioural model. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 2, 253-268.

Department of Health. (2010). Making written information easier to understand for people with learning disabilities. Guidance for people who commission or produce easy read information. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-written-information-easier-to-understand-for-people-with-learning-disabilities-guidance-for-people-who-commission-or-produce-easy-read-information-revised-edition-2010

Devapriam

Raju

Singh

Collacott

Bhaumik

(2007). Arson: Characteristics and predisposing factors in offenders with intellectual disabilities. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 9(4), 23-27.

Dickens

Sugarman

Ahmad

Edgar

Hofberg

Tewari

(2008). Characteristics of low IQ arsonists at psychiatric assessment. Medicine, Science and the Law, 48, 217-220.

Doley

(2003). Pyromania: Fact or fiction. British Journal of Criminology, 43, 797-807.

Hall

Clayton

Johnson

(2005). Arson and learning disability: The handbook of forensic learning disabilities. In Riding

Swann

(Eds.), The handbook of forensic learning disabilities (pp. 51-72). London, England: Radcliffe Publishing.

10.

Kelly

Goodwill

A. M.

Keene

Thrift

(2009). A retrospective study of historical risk factors for pathological arson in adults with mild learning disabilities. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 11(2), 17-23.

11.

Larkin

Thompson

(2011). Interpretative phenomenological analysis in mental health and psychotherapy research. In Harper

Thompson

(Eds.), Qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy: An introduction for students and practitioners (pp. 101-116). Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

12.

Lees-Warley

Rose

(2014). What does the evidence tell us about adults with low: Intellectual functioning who deliberately set fires? A systematic review. International Journal of Developmental Disabilities. Advance online publication. doi:10.1179/2047387714Y.0000000058

13.

Murphy

G. H.

Clare

I. C. H.

(1996). Analysis of motivation in people with mild learning disabilities (mental handicap) who set fires. Psychology, Crime & Law, 2, 153-164. doi:10.1080/10683169608409774

14.

Smith

J. A.

(2004). Reflecting on the development of interpretative phenomenological analysis and its contribution to qualitative research in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 1, 39-54.

15.

Smith

J. A.

Flowers

Larkin

(2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.