Invisible Trauma

Women, Difference and the Criminal Justice System

Anna Motz, Maxine Dennis, Anne Aiyegbusi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138218666
• eBook ISBN: 9781315389981
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

There is an expectation that women will be nurturers and carers. Women who have been judged violent, destructive and criminal and who are detained in the criminal justice system can find themselves perceived through a distorted lens as unwomanly. This book explains how they become hypervisible in their difference, while the histories of trauma and suffering that are communicated through their offending and other risk behaviour remain hidden, and so are unseen.

Bringing together authors uniquely placed as experts in their fields, Invisible Trauma argues that it is essential to trace the traumatic roots of women's violence and criminality. Powerful intergenerational factors perpetuate the cycles of offending and trauma re-enactment that current sentencing practice overlooks. The authors present a psychoanalytically informed account of the development of violence and other offending, identifying pathways for change to address trauma within the lives of these women and their children, and also to create a responsive, effective and sensitive workforce.

Invisible Trauma highlights the role of emotional, social and cultural forces in traumatising women who come into contact with the criminal justice system and uncovers areas of their lives that are all too often hidden from view. It will be invaluable to those working in clinical and forensic psychology, mental health nursing, psychotherapy, social work, medical practice and women's health, as well as frontline practitioners in the criminal justice system, the health service and third sector organisations and for anyone with an interest in racism, equality and social justice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the authors
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Maternal violence: ordinary and extraordinary
• 3. The criminalisation of blackness
• 4. Caught in the racist gaze? The vulnerability of black women to forensic mental health and criminal justice settings
• 5. Prostitution: visible bodies, hidden lives
• 6. Self-harm, inscriptions and survival
• 7. Taboo: female psychopathy and sexual offending against children
• 8. Extreme violence and female terrorism: restricted status and indeterminate sentences for public protection
• 9. Intoxicating states of mind: violence and its impact
• 10. ‘What happened?’ An attachment-based understanding of detained women with offending histories, extreme self-harm and diagnoses of personality disorder
• 11. Imprisoned and in prison: organised defences working against black women and girls
• 12. Conclusion: why the caged bird sings
• Index