Prisoners in a myriad ways
Mindfulness works to develop patients’ metacognition, or awareness and understanding of thought processes, she says. “We can realise that we are not our thoughts, feelings and emotions.”
A 2013 analysis published in the Clinical Psychology Review journal of more than 200 studies showed mi n d f u l n e s s w a s a n e f f e c t i v e treatment for psychological problems such as anxiety, stress and depression.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK now recommends the therapy as a way to prevent depression in people with a history of the condition. the introduction of yoga at facilities as part of an integrated approach to mental health, Wolela says.
“Most offenders taking yoga classes have attested that the programme provides them with the opportunity to l earn to accept themselves the way they are, to deal with stressful situations in a calm manner and to avoid negative thinking.
Many of them are now less aggressive and have seen improvements in their health and wellbeing,” he says.
Worcester prison community service clinical psychologist Yeshe Schepers helped to introduce the programme at the correctional facility.
“We know that a lot of people who end up committing crimes often say that they don’t know what led them to it, so there is very much a lack of awareness about their actions,” she says.
“Mindfulness can be useful for people who struggle with understanding or being aware of what is going on within them.
“It’s a nice tool to create a connection between what I think, feel and do and the impact of behaviour — especially in correctional settings where there is a lot of hostility.”
She says her yoga-practicing patients report feeling calmer. That’s important, given that prison is often a hostile and loud place.
It’s a feeling she says is shared by corrections officers, who have asked for regular yoga classes to be given at the facility so they can also manage their stress.
Schepers says it’s also given prisoners a sense of independence behind bars. “I see a sense of agency in them in being able to do something for themselves. They are not dependent on a guard or a visitor bringing something in for them. It’s almost like a sense of confidence I’ve noticed.”
Wolela says that, since 2004, the department of correctional services has more than doubled the number of psychologists it employs. But only about 100 serve the country’s almost 160 000 inmates. Being able to equip prisoners with tools to self-manage emotions and stress may help relieve the pressure on a system that has only seven psychologists for every 10 000 inmates.
Schepers says of the yoga participants: “The one thing that the offenders will say is: ‘I have learned to think before I act.’ I think that’s a lot because that, in essence, is the mindfulness. A moment of awareness to give [inmates] a choice to think through and to choose their response, and that is very, very powerful.”