Doctor Malcolm Bodie winced as he fingered the bruise on the side of his bald head and prayed that his next appointment wasn’t the volatile type like the one who’d punched him the day before yesterday.
Still, as a forensic psychologist, it wasn’t as if he was blind to these occasional risks of the job. They came with the territory. His particular profession was regarded as one of the most demanding positions within the field of clinical psychology and the circumstances could often be stressful. But, despite that, he never lost sight of the fact that it was necessary to maintain compassion for the inmates. After all, many of them had experienced the worst types of violence, abuse and drug addiction, and had become trapped in the kind of negative life cycles that he was here to help them break out of. The odd mishap aside, he generally enjoyed his job and derived a great deal of fulfilment from it.
His office was located in the administration block, not far from that of the Governor, and the decor was something he had given careful consideration to. On one shelf stood a variety of academic psychology tomes, none of which he actually needed to keep in there as he had read them all already, but he figured their presence lent a certain authority to his words and made the inmates take him more seriously. On another shelf was a ceramic phrenology head with the different parts of the mind traced out across its white glazed surface. Phrenology had been a nineteenth-century fad that was completely discredited these days, but he found that the inmates enjoyed looking at it and, like the books, it hopefully reinforced the clinical setting.
On his desk sat a framed photograph of his two children and a mug that bore the words ‘World’s Okayest Dad’. These again were calculated props to put the inmates at ease and make them feel able to connect with him as a human being. He knew that many of them had kids and he was happy to talk about his own if they asked. And they often did.
He peered through his wire-rimmed glasses at the file lying open on the desk in front of him. Reading through the notes, it appeared that his next appointment, Bailey Pike, had possible suicidal tendencies. She had been referred to him by the Governor as the result of an adjudication following an apparent attempt at self-harm. Suicide and self-harm were very serious issues and an increasingly prevalent problem inside the prison system. In today’s one-to-one assessment, he hoped to get to the root cause of her suicidal thoughts and assess how far she might try to do something similar again.
He leafed through her file and briefly scanned her criminal history. The details were fairly sparse. An accountant who’d embezzled money from her employers. The nature of the crime gave little insight into her personality.
He turned to her intake evaluation – the psychometric tests she’d filled out when she’d been inducted into the prison – and began to study the results.
Interesting—
There was a knock on the door. He looked up. He positioned the mug so that the words ‘World’s Okayest Dad’ would be plainly visible to the person sitting opposite him.
‘Come in,’ he said.
The door opened and the inmate came in, accompanied by a female prison officer. He smiled and nodded at the prison officer, who left, closing the door behind her.
‘Hello, Bailey,’ he said. ‘I’m Doctor Bodie. Thank you for coming to see me. Please take a seat.’
She sat down on the other side of the desk, crossing both her arms and her legs. Her head hung forward to the left, her hair obscuring that side of her face. He could instantly tell from her body language that she appeared unwilling to engage.
He noticed that she had sustained some kind of beating as her face showed signs of cuts and bruising, not unlike his own, but somewhat worse.
He smiled at her. She smiled a thin perfunctory smile back at him. He knew she wasn’t here of her own volition, but he had to find a way to break down the barriers somehow.
‘It took me a while to find your file. It had been put back in the wrong place, probably by the Governor himself, I shouldn’t be surprised! They keep all the files in these big filing cabinets in the room next door. Quite an antiquated system really. You’d think it would all be on computer these days, but it isn’t. This place is so backward, they probably still use ledgers and quill pens like they did in Victorian times, eh?’
She sat there unmoved, looking at him with her grey eyes. So much for his attempt to break the ice.
He changed tack. ‘I notice you have some nasty bruises on your face. I myself got punched the other day.’ He pointed to the bruise on his forehead and attempted to laugh in an offhand manner. ‘I can’t say I enjoy being assaulted, especially when I’m just trying to do my job. Can I ask what happened to you?’
She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘I slipped and fell.’
Finally. She’d spoken. Obviously she was lying though. She clearly didn’t want to reveal the true reason for her injuries, probably for fear of being perceived as a snitch. He could see that she was unwilling to disclose any further information.
Maybe a more direct approach would be better. He cleared his throat, leaned forward and steepled his fingers under his chin.
‘So… you jumped off the balcony. Why did you try and do that?’
She shrugged and looked away, indifferent, unwilling to answer.
A difficult one, he thought. So many of them were like this, reluctant to help themselves.
‘Have you attempted suicide or tried to self-harm before?’
‘No.’
‘Have you had psychiatric contact before?’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever found shrinks to be of much use in the past.’
‘I see.’ He began to scribble some notes on his notepad. ‘And have you ever been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? When it comes to suicide and self-harm, there’s often some kind of underlying psychiatric disorder lying at the root of it. Depression, panic, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder are among some of the things that can cause people to want to hurt themselves. Or sometimes substance abuse can be the problem. Drugs, alcohol and so on.’
‘I feel just fine.’
‘People who feel just fine don’t usually jump off balconies.’
‘Look, I just did it for a laugh, okay.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Why would you do that? Why would you endanger your life “for a laugh”?’ He made quotation marks with his fingers.
She exhaled impatiently and looked at her watch.
‘Look, Doctor, I appreciate you trying to help me, but I assure you I’m perfectly okay.’
He was used to inmates being reticent but this one seemed to be particularly unforthcoming. He sighed.
‘I’m glad you feel that way, Bailey, but I have to be sure that you’re not at-risk. The fact that you conducted a near-lethal suicide attempt means that something’s not quite right and I’m determined to find out what it is.’
She rolled her eyes.
He continued with a firm no-nonsense tone in his voice. ‘I’m going to place you on the ACCT sheet. That stands for Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork and it means I’ll be monitoring your mental health very closely. I’m particularly concerned for you because you’re a relatively new inmate. Suicide rates are highest amongst those who’ve been incarcerated for less than thirty days, and you’ve been in here for just under three weeks.’
‘You’re wasting your time.’
This inmate’s attitude was starting to stretch his patience.
‘I’m here to help you, Bailey. But if you want me to help you, you have to want to help yourself. Remember, it’s me who advises the parole board on your suitability for release. If you’re not willing to improve, then you may be spending longer in here than you want to.’
A small smile flickered across her face.
‘I’ll leave here when I’m ready to leave,’ she said.
‘I’m glad you’re so confident, but I have to make sure that you’re fully rehabilitated and in a suitable mental state to be able to fit back into normal society. That’s what I do with all the inmates here and you’re no exception.’
He began to write down some further notes in her file, outlining the type of treatment programme he planned to follow with her.
‘Rehabilitation’s a waste of time,’ she said suddenly.
‘Really?’ he peered at her over the tops of his glasses. There was no denying that there was something intriguing about her. On one hand, she seemed so closed, yet here she was suddenly willing to engage with him. ‘Why do you think that?’ he asked.
‘Some people are bad people and they’ll always be that way. Full stop. And there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change it.’
‘That’s a rather fatalistic view. So what do you suggest we do with these people?’
‘Lock them up and throw away the key.’
He frowned. ‘That’s an odd attitude for an inmate to have. Most inmates in here believe that they’ve been unjustly imprisoned. Do you not feel that way about yourself?’
She chewed her lip and looked into the distance.
‘I’m in here for a very good reason,’ she said.
‘I see. Well, at least you’re being honest. That’s a start. Being sent to prison is a big thing to happen to someone, Bailey. It often changes a person’s whole approach to their own personal psychology. You can choose to learn from your mistakes. You can look at the path which brought you here. You have the ability to analyse the chain of decisions which resulted in your imprisonment. This is an important thing to do if you want to make progress.’
‘Like I said, I’ll leave when I’m ready.’
She looked determinedly into his eyes. In the sudden pause in conversation he found himself momentarily mesmerised by her grey unblinking stare. He dropped his gaze to the papers on his desk.
‘You took some personality tests when you came in here. They make interesting reading. They indicate that you are intelligent, resourceful and enterprising, but also obstinate and perhaps even a little arrogant. You are self-contained and you place a heavy value on autonomy. You are not averse to taking risks and, in fact, it appears that you almost crave uncertainty and a distinct amount of stress. Is that true?’
She nodded slowly, smiling slightly. ‘Spot on, Doctor. I guess I do get bored easily. I get antsy just sitting around.’
‘Is that why you embezzled the money?’
She shrugged.
‘Strange though,’ he said with a frown on his face.
‘What?’
‘Well, your tests reveal a certain degree of social conscience which just doesn’t gel with the nature of your crime, nor with a criminal personality generally. Quite a puzzling contradiction.’
She observed him silently, almost suspiciously, as if he had touched on something sensitive. The fact that she appeared to have clammed up again only stoked his interest in wanting to find out more about how she ticked.
‘You have a lot of potential, Bailey. I think you genuinely possess the capability to turn your life around and make something of it. But I sense something else, something which is troubling you. Something lying just below the surface which you’re not telling me. Something to do with the reason that you ended up in here.’
She gazed at him coolly with her grey eyes. He could tell she wasn’t about to reveal anything further.
She looked at her watch. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Not just yet. I’d like to administer some further tests. Is that okay? Just to be on the safe side.’
‘What kind of tests?’
Again that suspicious look on her face, as if she almost felt threatened by the prospect.
‘They’re just simple tests which can help me better understand your mental health.’
He took out several sheets of paper from a drawer and pushed them across the table to her, along with a biro. She looked at the long list of questions and emitted a puff of boredom.
The tests were commonly used psychological tools in his profession. One was the Beck Suicide Intent Scale. The other was the Wessex Dissociation Scale. With these two tests, he was hoping to establish the level of her suicidal thoughts and the possible explanations behind them.
‘You’ll see that each question asks you about how you feel. All you have to do is score each one on a scale of one to ten. Please fill it out honestly. It’s in your best interests to do so.’
She sighed and began to fill out the questions. He watched her as she did so, noting for the first time the ugly white scar running down the side of her face and neck. She worked fast and diligently, marking the paper with confident flicks of the pen.
Many inmates needed help with the questions, often due to low levels of literacy, but this one was clearly smart and well-educated.
After a short while, she finished and pushed the completed tests back across the table to him.
She started to stand up.
‘We’re not done just yet.’
‘There’s more?’
‘I have some homework for you.’
‘Homework?’
‘I’d like you to keep a daily diary of your thoughts. Positive, negative, however you’re feeling at any given point of the day.’
‘Sure,’ she shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Doctor.’
He had a feeling she wasn’t going to bother.