Conducting Remotivation in a Correctional Setting.

Alternative Therapies

May 2021

Full Citation

Siberski, J. (2014). Conducting Remotivation in a Correctional Setting. Handbook of Remotivation Therapy, 79.

Abstract

This is the story of the author's nearly five years of experience working in a maximum security prison as a visiting remotivation therapist. Observations, even conclusions, contained in this story result from a systematic plan to investigate the common problems often associated with remotivation therapy: depression, isolation and alienation, poor motivation, apathy, and low self-esteem. Needless to say, the prison is fertile ground for developing and reinforcing behavior that keeps prisoners from seeing the outside world (or even their own inside worlds) as anything but negative. Remotivation in this setting had many barriers to overcome, among them severe psychiatric disorders in the population: schizophrenia, depression, borderline personality disorder, and sociopathic personality disorder. Basic generic remotivation was included in the Pennsylvania correctional system but only as a part of an overall activity therapy program for inmates with psychiatric disorders. As reported elsewhere, inmates with psychiatric disorders are increasing at every level of correction and they are a difficult population to treat (Condelli, Dvoskin, and Holanchock, 1994). This work was carried out with male inmates in a maximum security prison on a special needs unit. All had a psychiatric diagnosis. Their crimes ranged from robbery to drug dealing to homicide. They were referred to the program by prison counselors on the block to receive activity therapy. Once accepted into the program, the inmates received three hours of therapy a month, including remotivation therapy (Siberski, 2001). This experiment proceeded for five years without the benefit of others' efforts. The literature contains scant information on which to plan a long-term program and make decisions about remotivation as used in a correctional setting and very little information is available on activity therapy. This extended program included an effort to obtain basic data about the effects of activity therapy, including both advanced and basic remotivation. Those results are reported in the "Journal of Offender Rehabilitation" (Siberski, 2001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)