Emerging beauty beyond freedom: Gestalt therapy approach with offenders using CORE and CHAP instrument

Working with offenders in prison and trying to facilitate psychotherapy groups in an environment which is not conducive to change is a challenge for every psychotherapist. The majority of mental health professionals, who work in this setting, usually state that if you are able to raise the motivation and interest amongst offenders for psychotherapy groups, than you are able to lead psychotherapy groups everywhere. Offenders as clients are usually suspicious, resistant to insight, and it is very difficult to build trust-based relationships with them. In this research study we were interested in answering several questions. Firstly, we wanted to explore variation in the psychological distress and emotional imbalance during the psychotherapy treatment with the hypothesis that symptoms will be decreasing over time. Secondly, we were interested in validating the CORE and CHAP using analysis that explored their relationship with the Mania and Depression measures. Finally, our aim was to investigate how CORE and CHAP could be used with an offender population.