Il Colloquio con il detenuto: aspetti antropologici

Abstract

During the clinical interview – both criminological and psychiatric – between the prisoner and who works in the mental health (psychiatrist, criminologist, psychologist, etc.) in the context of a prison, a lot of features can make this therapeutical relation very difficult: first of all, the suspiciousness and the prejudices of people who works in the mental health against the prisoners and vice versa. Then, for a better understanding, it is useful to consider the prisoner, deprived of his freedom and forced to long imprisonment, connected to his behaviours, values, rules and choices, tightly related to a “subculture of prison” and so different from “life out of the prison”. The clinical interview is the way how who works in a mental health context makes the first therapeutical intervention and it has got very specific features. Some of the elements will be examinated, particularly by an anthropological and cultural point of view (psychological processes, cultural context, etc.), in order to go deeper into the understanding of the clinical interview with the prisoner, but also in order to aid a specific therapeutical intervention