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Psychology Service
The Psychology Service forms part of the Regimes Directorate of the Irish Prison Service and applies psychological research, principles and skills to the needs of the prison service.
As well as maintaining a commitment to the provision of mental health services to offenders, the Service addresses those factors that put offenders at risk of re-offending, participates in the development of group programmes for particular offender groups, contributes to a variety of training initiatives with Prison Officers aimed at enhancing the role of the Officer, and is involved in the development of strategy, policy and protocols in areas significant to the operation of the prison system. The Service also supports and facilitates research projects, including the evaluation of interventions with offenders.
Individual sessions with prisoners generally fall into one of three categories. Therapeutic work is typically longer-term work and focuses on mental health care issues (facilitating adjustment to being in prison and coping with the various pressures that ensue from this) and/or offence-focused issues (addressing those factors that put an individual offender at risk of committing further criminal acts on his/her release).
Motivational counselling involves encouraging the offender to address long-standing problems such as addictions or a criminal lifestyle, where there is an ambivalent attitude towards change. Such work can form a critical part of the change process and an offender who has undergone such an intervention can be far better able to cope with more intensive interventions directly focused on offending behaviour. It is not unusual for motivational counselling to develop into longer-term therapeutic work.
Crisis counselling is offered to those offenders managing highly stressful circumstances or emotions, such as those who are feeling suicidal or those who have experienced a recent trauma.
Group sessions include programmes on motivational enhancement, relapse prevention, anxiety management, dialectical behaviour therapy, stress management, sex offending, enhanced thinking skills and anger control.
All of these functions are carried out in co-operation with a wide variety of people and services, including prison management and staff, other specialist services (such as the Probation Service, healthcare, chaplaincy), prison service training and central management.
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