The Interaction Is the Work: Rehabilitating Risk in a Forensic Patient with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Learning Disability

Abstract

Bringing about change is not a simple undertaking. One of the most frustrating things a therapist can hear, but tends to hear often nonetheless, is 'people can't really change'. Yet this is the task therapy sets itself: to change something personal and internal, usually both behavioural and cognitive, to the individual or, systemically, to the couple or family group. This chapter focuses on a particularly challenging therapeutic context: that of a person with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and learning disability (LD), who had been detained to a secure psychiatric hospital under a section of the Mental Health Act (Department of Health, 2007). Extracts of interactions between the patient and his clinicians are analysed to demonstrate how discursive methods can contribute to rehabilitation and risk management work in the forensic setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)