The Locked up Living Podcast: Surviving and thriving in prisons and other challenging environments

93. Nicoleta Porojanu. From trauma to self discovery and healing

Nicoleta Porojanu.  Born and raised in challenging circumstances Nicoleta had several careers before becoming  an applied psychologist, a psychotherapist and an educator and now she seeks to help people navigate painful transitions.  She has her own inspirational story about navigating painful experiences and not getting stuck in the pain so we’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. She is a specialist in transgenerational trauma and founded the charity The Significant You.
https://thesignificantyou.org/

92. Ray Bishop. Outlaw - A personal story of crime, addictions and recovery

David first met Ray Bishop when he came to HMP Grendon in 2003. He did well there and moved on towards release. It was not an easy path and Ray's tendency towards self destructive and addictive behaviour caused him to seek support and treatment several more times. Ray is the author of Outlaw a book based upon his experiences growing up in a council estate in South East London. Ray tells all of his early days of petty crime. Being despatched to notoriously violent youth-detention centres where he was further criminalized he graduated with flying colours to a career in London's underworld as an armed robber, a drug smuggler and a people trafficker, developing a serious addiction to cocaine and heroin along the way.But Ray's is also story of redemption, of coming back from rock bottom and learning lessons the hard back. Enrolling in a rigorous rehabilitation programme, Ray turned his life around. He went on to realise his childhood dream of becoming British Middleweight Boxing Champion, setting up his own business and advocating for others along the way.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outlaw-Became-Britains-Most-Wanted-ebook/dp/B00IZK2XKM
 
Transcript is available here:
 
https://open.substack.com/pub/lockedupliving/p/ray-bishop-from-outlaw-to-entrepreneur?r=216eb0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

91. Mary Haley.Psychotherapy in HMP Grendon therapeutic communities

Mary Haley was until very recently Head of Psychotherapy at HMP Grendon the only fully therapeutic prison in the UK and which incidentally celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2022. She is now Head of Training and Development also at Grendon.
We are very pleased to be talking with Mary because she has had an unusual career pathway working in different roles within the prison service. These roles include prison officer, governor, inreach psychotherapist and wing therapist on a therapeutic community.

90. Paul Gately talks about the emotional cost of the obesity epidemic.

Paul Gately is Director of MoreLife and a Professor of Exercise and Obesity at Leeds Beckett University, he is the Co-Director of the Obesity Institute at Leeds Beckett University.  Paul was the Principle Investigator on Public Health England’s Whole Systems Approach to Obesity and he is the Co-director of the Centre for Applied Obesity Research. His primary research interest is child and adult obesity treatment strategies but also the wider determinants of obesity.  Paul has delivered over 600 presentations and scientific publications, as well as numerous policy documents on obesity treatment, whole systems approaches to obesity and physical activity promotion. 
 
https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/blogs/carnegie-xchange/2022/02/professor-paul-gately-obesity-institute/
 
https://www.more-life.co.uk/morelifeteam/paul-gately/

89. Dave Harris Boxing, dementia and the need for specialist care

Dave Harris is a former amateur boxer as well as having worked as a trainer, manager and promoter of boxers.  He is founder of the British Boxing Hall of Fame and also founded the Ringside Trust which is a charity aspiring to create a residential home for former boxers. He also worked for many years in the social services sector managing residential homes.
 
https://ringsiderestandcare.com/

88. Ally Fogg. Men and Boys Coalition co-founder on campaigning for justice for both women and men

This conversation is with writer, journalist, and co-founder of the men's men and boys coalition Ally Fogg. Ally is used to writing for national press. So is someone who has well thought out arguments around many issues that relate to men and boys.
Ally Fogg is a writer and journalist who has written extensively on men and boys’ issues for the Guardian and many other national and international media outlets. His work has always closely involved social and political activism, with many years in the not-for-profit and charitable sectors, including periods as staff writer for Big Issue in the North and developing community media in disadvantaged inner city areas. He lives in Manchester with two sons, two dogs, two cats and two guitars. Ally is a co-founder and Trustee of the Men and Boys Coalition.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/19/international-mens-day
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20161116145929/http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2016/11/15/introducing-the-men-and-boys-coalition-how-the-british-mens-sector-has-come-of-age/
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20180901025653/http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2018/08/21/masculinity-isnt-toxic-debate/
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20180301213201/https://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2017/12/13/masculinity-the-personal-the-political-and-the-economic/
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20160506164951/http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2016/05/06/the-last-great-masculine-delusion-what-even-grayson-perry-doesnt-get/
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20161119130129/http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2016/03/31/defining-gender-inclusive-politics/
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20160401050357/http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2016/01/12/medway-male-violence-and-invisibilisation/
 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/12/male-victims-abuse-violence-support-policy

87. Laura Hamilton. Boundary breaking and boundary keeping in forensic settings

Laura has such great clinical and academic experience that we could have talked with her about many things but in this episode we focus on how her thinking on boundaries developed as she worked in the challenging setting of a new personality disorder unit.
Laura Hamilton is a Registered and Chartered Forensic Psychologist and Senior Lecturer. Working in forensic practice for 20 years, she has specialised in the assessment and treatment of trauma and personality disorder with individuals who have convictions. She is an innovative practitioner often working at the cutting edge of clinical practice and seeking new ways of enhancing forensic interventions. She conducted the first trials of Radically Open- Dialectical Behavioural (RODBT) Therapy with forensic service users and was part of the development team which trialled Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT). Laura is trained in a range of treatment modalities, including CAT, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, RODBT, EMDR and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. As an academic she developed postgraduate courses for forensic psychologists in-training, and delivers specialist teaching, supervision and workshops on a range of applied clinical forensic issues. Her research interests are in applied boundary studies, overcontrol and trauma.

86. Robert Canton . Anger and Disgust in the criminal justice system

In this conversation Rob considers the place of emotions across the criminal justice spectrum.
Rob Canton is Professor in Community and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Before joining De Montfort, he worked in the Probation Service for some 20 years in a number of different roles. Rob has guested on the podcast before. Rob has contributed to probation development and general penal reform in more than ten different countries, mostly in Europe. He served on the Council of Europe to develop and revise European Rules relating to probation and acted as a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee in its Inquiry into the Role of the Probation Service (2010 -11).Rob has written a number of articles and book chapters as well as authoring a number of books. His latest book is Punishment in the Key ideas in Criminology series. He kindly sent us a chapter to read in preparation for  this podcast and its great to have another opportunity to speak with himtoday.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Punishment-Key-Ideas-Criminology-Canton-ebook/dp/B0B455ZJZ3/ref=sr_1_4?qid=1656437431&refinements=p_27%3ARob+Canton&s=books&sr=1-4

85. Alexander Oviawe. ”Too inner city” How a (racist) phrase can affect your mental health

This week our podcast conversation may seem a little different. But we are still seeking methods and activities which provide opportunities for stress relief and deveopment.
Alexander Oviawe is a former physiologist and founder of a tech start up that used different ways to model physical stress.  During the difficult period of shutting down the start up, he became clinically depressed and developed generalised anxiety disorder.   After receiving help, Alexander became fascinated with heart rate variability, psychophysiology and technology.  He is working with University of East London to explore the use of HRV and emotional regulation. He now leads a company developing web based applications to monitor Heart rate variation (HRV), see the link to the free app below.
PsychogenX Explorer is a web application used by practitioners as a client support tool to remotely observe and assess emotional regulation and wellness changes. Along with the Explorer web app, PsychogenX comes with a Client Wellness App; a scientifically-validated wellness app  that turns your client's smartphone into a powerful biofeedback device to help quantify psychophysiological changes.
Find a link to the app here
https://psychogenx.health/
See two papwers related to the method here.
https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/private-practice/september-2021/how-the-body-responds-to-racism/
https://psychogenx.medium.com/how-to-use-heart-rate-variability-for-psychotherapy-2e386bb2a0bf
 
Use this code to get 50% reduction on paid accounts.
lockedupliving

15 minute submission to Pod of the Year, Wellness category

We submitted to the Podcast of the Year Awards and have been shortlisted for one category. (Hooray!!) Please can you vote for us.
Go to this link, type in The Locked Up Living podcast and follow the link to post for us.
https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote
and you can see all of the podcasts and 15 minute submissions here
https://lockedupliving.podbean.com/
This is what we wrote about the podcast;
Locked Up Living is on a mission to challenge the silo thinking that pervades macho organisations such as the criminal justice system by covering subjects that are directly relevant but haven’t yet had enough visibility to become influential. We have featured guests tackling subjects with innovative implications for custodial settings (and other toxic organisations); several of our guests would be considered radical thinkers and we’ve covered subjects that forensic practitioners are often frightened to talk or even think about. We are particularly interested in guests whose work shines a spotlight on the challenges to those who live and work in locked environments and ways to overcome the barriers to well-being that these obstacles raise. We are especially interested in emotional literacy and health. Our podcast is popular with those researching or working in prisons and other locked or challenging environments including criminologists, psychologists, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals. This was David and Naomi’s first foray into podcasting. Started as a lockdown spare-time venture, neither has any experience of audio planning and production so we’ve had to develop skills as we go along. Several of our listeners are academics who’ve recommended our podcast to their students and the positive feedback we’ve received has encouraged us to continue beyond lockdown. We are regularly approached by people wanting to appear
on the podcast to promote their work.
Our weekly podcast was downloaded 14k times during the course of the year.

15 minute submission. Christoph Heubner Poet, Vive Chair International Auschwitz Committee.

We submitted to the Podcast of the Year Awards and have been shortlisted for one category. (Hooray!!) Please can you vote for us.
Go to this link, type in The Locked Up Living podcast and follow the link to post for us.
https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote
 
This is what we wrote about the podcast;
Locked Up Living is on a mission to challenge the silo thinking that pervades machoorganisations such as the criminal justice system by covering subjects that are directlyrelevant but haven’t yet had enough visibility to become influential. We have featuredguests tackling subjects with innovative implications for custodial settings (and other toxicorganisations); several of our guests would be considered radical thinkers and we’vecovered subjects that forensic practitioners are often frightened to talk or even think about.We are particularly interested in guests whose work shines a spotlight on the challenges tothose who live and work in locked environments and ways to overcome the barriers to well-being that these obstacles raise. We are especially interested in emotional literacy andhealth. Our podcast is popular with those researching or working in prisons and otherlocked or challenging environments including criminologists, psychologists,psychotherapists and other mental health professionals.This was David and Naomi’s first foray into podcasting. Started as a lockdown spare-timeventure, neither has any experience of audio planning and production so we’ve had todevelop skills as we go along. Several of our listeners are academics who’ve recommendedour podcast to their students and the positive feedback we’ve received has encouraged usto continue beyond lockdown. We are regularly approached by people wanting to appearon the podcast to promote their work.Our weekly podcast was downloaded 14k times during the course of the year.

15 minute submission to Podcast of the Year Awards, Current affairs. Prison Governor,9/11 victim, public school, the police, disgust.

We submitted to the Podcast of the Year Awards and have been shortlisted for one category. (Hooray!!) Please can you vote for us.
Go to this link, type in The Locked Up Living podcast and follow the link to post for us.
https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote
 
This is what we wrote about the podcast;
Locked Up Living is on a mission to challenge the silo thinking that pervades machoorganisations such as the criminal justice system by covering subjects that are directlyrelevant but haven’t yet had enough visibility to become influential. We have featuredguests tackling subjects with innovative implications for custodial settings (and other toxicorganisations); several of our guests would be considered radical thinkers and we’vecovered subjects that forensic practitioners are often frightened to talk or even think about.We are particularly interested in guests whose work shines a spotlight on the challenges tothose who live and work in locked environments and ways to overcome the barriers to well-being that these obstacles raise. We are especially interested in emotional literacy andhealth. Our podcast is popular with those researching or working in prisons and otherlocked or challenging environments including criminologists, psychologists,psychotherapists and other mental health professionals.This was David and Naomi’s first foray into podcasting. Started as a lockdown spare-timeventure, neither has any experience of audio planning and production so we’ve had todevelop skills as we go along. Several of our listeners are academics who’ve recommendedour podcast to their students and the positive feedback we’ve received has encouraged usto continue beyond lockdown. We are regularly approached by people wanting to appearon the podcast to promote their work.Our weekly podcast was downloaded 14k times during the course of the year.

84. Ruth McFarlane & Dan Whyte: Improving educational opportunities for prisoners

Dan and Ruth are co-Directors of DWRM Consultants, a community interest company that works with universities to offer a wide range of degree courses to students in prison. Dan has dedicated himself to establishing DWRM Consultants, at the same time as navigating all the challenges of leaving prison. He has led on the creation of a peer mentor support programme which offers education and employment coaching and support for people leaving prison, based on his own understanding of the gaps in provision. From a starting point of no educational attainment, Dan achieved undergraduate and postgraduate degrees while in prison and is now studying for a PhD in criminology.Ruth is an education specialist, lecturer and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has significant experience of working with people excluded from mainstream education, especially in secure settings.  She is all about supporting meaningful education in prison and on release. She has authored a wide range of academic publications, cited and featured internationally. Considering herself a student as well as a teacher, she is passionate about inclusion and equality.These links will take you to their website where you will see their prospectus and details of post release support.https://www.dwrm.org.uk/what-we-do/university-courses/ https://www.dwrm.org.uk/what-we-do/ttg-support/

83. Elizabeth Bates. Male victims of domestic violence and aggression.

Dr Elizabeth Bates is a Principal Lecturer at the University of Cumbria. Her PhD focused on exploring the personality and psychopathological predictors of men’s and women’s partner violence. Her post-doctoral work has focused on exploring the experience of male victims and she has published papers on their experience of physical and psychological abuse, barriers to help-seeking, post-separation abuse and the impact on children of living in an abusive home. Dr Bats is a trustee of the ManKind Initiative a UK charity supporting male victims of domestic violence, and is also Chair of the BPS Male Psychology Section. She is currently organising the first in person conference of the BPS Male Psychology Section which is on 20th and 20th June. Naomi Murphy is a keynote speaker. See the programme here.
https://www.bps.org.uk/events/male-psychology-section-conference-2022/programme
And this is the link to the ManKind initiative
https://www.mankind.org.uk/

82. Keith Rix.Psychiatry, prisons and being an expert witness

Keith Rix is an enormously experienced forensic psychiatrist. In this conversation he shares reflections on his early career choices and how he came to make them. We cover family courts, working inside prisons, being an expert witness and cases with the potential of a death penalty.
 
Professor Keith Rix, BMedBiol (Hons), MPhil, LLM, MD, FRCPsych, Hon FFFLM, is a consultant forensic psychiatrist. His involvement in the forensic field began in the 1960’s when he lived in hostels in London with ex-offenders and assessed prisoners for hostel admission. He moved to Leeds as senior lecturer in psychiatry in 1983 and became a visiting consultant psychiatrist at HM Prison, Leeds. He established the Leeds Magistrates’ Court Mental Health Assessment and Diversion Scheme and the city’s forensic psychiatry service. He has provided expert evidence to the courts for over thirty years, including evidence on a pro bono basis in capital cases in the Caribbean and Africa, and he is the author of Expert Psychiatric Evidence and lead author of the Royal College of Psychiatrists report Responsibilities of psychiatrists who provide expert opinion to courts and tribunals. He is also the editor of A Handbook for Trainee Psychiatrists and co-author, with his wife Elizabeth Lumsden Rix, of Alcohol Problems. Until recently he was a Chairman of the Fitness to Practise Panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service and part-time lecturer in the Department of Law, De Montfort University, Leicester. He is now Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, Institute of Medicine, University of Chester, and Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. In 2015 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.

81. Dominique Moran and Jennifer Turner. Prisons, the military and war.

Tracing the meanings of military geographies, veterans and the prison industrial complex
Professor Dominique Moran is professor of carceral geography Birmingham University and her expertise is in providing a geographical perspective on incarceration.   
Dominique is also Chair of the  Carceral geography Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographies. 
She is author of “Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration and editor of a number of texts on spatial geography and its relation to imprisonment.  She is also widely published in a number of leading geographical journals.
Jennifer Turner leads the Crime and Carcerality Research Group in the Institute for Social Sciences at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Her research interests concern the relationships between prison and contemporary society, including, most recently, interrogations of the prison-military complex. Jennifer is the author of The Prison Boundary: Between Society and Carceral Space, which interrogates the notion of a hard and fast separation between the inside and outside of prison by presenting a variety of case studies that demonstrate a complex and changeable boundary relationship. She is also the Chair of the Carceral Geography Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), which brings together academic and non-academic members interested in spaces of confinement from all over the world.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03091325221080247
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13624806211031248

80. Shona Herron. Emptiness. What is that feeling?

Emptiness is a feeling we may have all experienced. Some are afflicted deeply and chronically, particularly those who are in prisons and hospitals. Yet it has been little studied so in this conversation Shona talks about her research of the phenomenon of emptiness.
Shona qualified as a Clinical Associate in Applied Psychology in Scotland before moving to London to undertake her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at University College London. She is currently in her final 6 months of her Doctorate, completing her thesis and working with men who are detained in the High Security Estate, and men in forensic hospital across North London. She adores her ability to combine clinical and research work, and is particularly passionate about tackling oppressive systems, non-diagnostic approaches to mental health challenges and attempting to use the principles of community psychology and narrative approaches in everything she does.
https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/YicucRAAAPf45c2S
https://theconversation.com/many-of-us-feel-empty-understanding-what-it-means-is-important-for-improving-our-mental-health-163035

79. Nick Fletcher MP: Who looks after the interests of men?

Nick Fletcher is the conservative MP for Don Valley which he has represented since 2019.  We were particularly interested in having Nick on the podcast to discuss his work as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Working Group for Issues concerning Men and Boys since men and boys are over-represented in the criminal justice system.

78. Martin Seager. Creating compassionate psychological services

Martin has great depth of experience in Health and allied fields. In this conversation he explains how strongly he believes in making psychological ideas and treatments widely available and how this has sometimes encountered opposition from those with power.
 
Martin Seager is a consultant clinical psychologist and adult psychotherapist most recently with the addictions charity, CGL (2016-2020). He is a clinician, lecturer, campaigner and author on mental health issues. He studied at Oxford University, Edinburgh University and the Tavistock Clinic. He worked in the NHS for over 30 years and was head of psychological services in two large mental health Trusts. He had a regular mental health slot on BBC Essex radio from 2003-2007 and BBC Radio Five Live “Up All Night” from 2007-2009. In 2006 he formed a national mental health advisory group for the health secretary at the time, Patricia Hewitt. In 2010-2011 he worked in the homelessness field with the charity St Mungo’s and also the “Big Issue”. He spent over 10 years as a branch consultant to the Central London Samaritans and was a member of the mental health advisory board for the College of Medicine. He is now on the clinical advisory board of the Campaign for Living Miserably (CALM). His passion is to promote a psychologically-minded approach to science, public health and human well-being, moving away from treating mental conditions to meeting the psychological needs of the human condition. He is a specialist on male gender psychology and co-founder of both the Male Psychology Network and the Male Psychology Section of the BPS. He is co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health (2019) which includes a chapter on Gamma Bias theory which he developed with John Barry.
 
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/april-2020/gamma-bias-new-theory
 
 
 

77. Dr Rahmanara Chowdhury . Domestic violence in muslim communities

Dr Rahmanara Chowdhury is Course Lead for Islam and Pastoral Care at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education. She completed her undergraduate studies in Ergonomics at Loughborough University. She has a Masters in Psychology from Nottingham Trent University and completed her PhD exploring Domestic Violence and Abuse in the UK Muslim population, at Brunel University London. Her PhD research was funded by the ESRC Grand Union Doctoral Training programme. She is the author of ‘Qawwamoon; Protectors and Maintainers’, and ‘Road to Recovery’, Ta Ha Publishers and is the Head of the newly formed MIHE Centre for the Study of Wellbeing.
https://www.mihe.ac.uk/index.php/centre-for-the-study-of-wellbeing/
https://www.tahapublishers.com/road-to-recovery%3A-healing-from-domestic-violence~307