Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

Rationale/Background: Ethical and moral issues in correctional mental health settings arecomplex and challenging. As evidenced in the literature, ethical conflict is intrinsic tocorrectional settings. Correctional settings, because of the competing demands of the legal andhealth care system, provide a particularly significant environment to explore the phenomenon ofmoral distress.Moral distress is a concept that captures a range of experiences that an individual mayexperience when morally constrained. Components of moral distress prevalent in the currentnursing literature are: (a) the embodied effects of moral distress, (b) awareness of a moralproblem, and (c) perception of correct moral action. The limited current research on moraldistress has not yet expanded to correctional psychologists.Research Question: The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of moraldistress among Canadian correctional psychologists..Methodology: Interpretative Phenomenological AnalysisResults/Findings: A preliminary finding as research is still in progress. Results will be completein March, 2013.Implications: Presentation of my findings will highlight common and challenging ethical issuesconfronting correctional psychologists, identify situations that support and constraint ethicalpractice, and outline rich, thick descriptions of the physiological, emotional, and socialexperiences of moral distress.97. Law’s Passions I: Is the Impartiality of the Law Threatened byRecognition of its Emotional Power?Pastoral Correctionalism: Care, Power and the StateChrysanthi Leon, University of Delaware (santhi@udel.edu)Specialized programs, including mental health courts and prostitution diversion programs,exhibit the pastoral form of state power identified by Foucault. Both the client/offenders and theprofessionals who operate the programs participate in what I call pastoral correctionalism: theuse of individualized care and empathy to shape behavior and restrict agency. These programsoperate in a space adjacent to the dominantly punitive forms of state control, and use therapeuticrhetoric to soften state power. But they are also in opposition to the client-centered approach thatcharacterizes the recovery model, as well as most contemporary treatments, since criminal justiceprofessionals will cede their expertise to treatment professionals, but not to the client/offenders.Ultimately, pastoral correctionalism provides a humanity missing from punitive regimes, whilemaintaining deeply invasive surveillance and reinforcing the assumption that by breaking thelaw, offenders have forfeited the capacity to set their own goals or pursue their own recovery.237