This article examines the conflict that ensues over the meaning of `truth' in a
treatment program for imprisoned sexual offenders. Based on ethnographic research in
a prison hospital, extensive interview and observational data are employed to
demonstrate the pervasiveness of truth discourse in both treatment and everyday
living on the unit. Through the application of a narrative analytic framework, it is
argued that the inherent incompatibility between autobiography and disclosure
— or narrative and paradigmatic modes of thought, to use Bruner's (1986,
1991) terms — explains how and why inmates struggle to accept the
re-emplotment of their life stories demanded by treatment staff.
Beck, A.
and
M. Weishaar
(1989) `Cognitive Therapy', in
A. Freeman
,
K. Simon
,
L. Beutler
and
H. Arkowitz
(eds) Comprehensive Handbook of Cognitive Therapy, pp.
21—36.
New York: Plenum Press
.
2.
Bruner, J.
(1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
.
3.
Bruner, J.
(1990) Acts of Meaning.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
.
4.
Bruner, J.
(1991) `
The Narrative Construction of Reality'
, Critical Inquiry18:
1—21
.
5.
Christianson, S.-A.
and
M.A. Safer
(1995) `Emotional Events and Emotions in Autobiographical
Memories', in
D.C. Rubin
(ed.) Remembering our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory,
pp. 218—43.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
6.
DeLeon, G.
,
G. Melnick
,
G. Thomas
,
D. Kressel
and
H. Wexler
(2000) `
Motivation for Treatment in a Prison-Based Therapeutic Community'
, American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse26(1):
33—46
.
7.
Ellis, A.
(1989) `The History of Cognition in Psychotherapy', in
A. Freeman
,
K. Simon
,
L. Beutler
and
H. Arkowitz
(eds) Comprehensive Handbook of Cognitive Therapy, pp.
5—19.
New York: Plenum Press
.
8.
Fox, K.
( 1999) `
Changing Violent Minds: Discursive Correction and Resistance in the
Cognitive Treatment of Violent Offenders in Prison'
, Social Problems46:
88—103
.
9.
Frank, A.
(1995) The Wounded Storyteller.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
.
10.
Garro, L.C.
and
C. Mattingly
(2000) `Narrative as Construct and Construction', in
C. Mattingly
and
L. Garro
(eds) Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and
Healing, pp. 1—49.
Berkeley: University of California Press
.
11.
Good, B.
(1994) Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An
Anthropological Perspective.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
12.
Jackson, M.
(2002) The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression
and Intersubjectivity.
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press
.
13.
Kirmayer, L.J.
(2000) `Broken Narratives: Clinical Encounters and the
Poetics of Illness Experience', in
C. Mattingly
and
L. Garro
(eds) Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and
Healing, pp. 153—80.
Berkeley: University of California Press
.
14.
Lockwood, D.
,
J. Inciardi
,
C. Butzin
and
R. Hooper
(1997) `Therapeutic Community Continuum in Corrections'
, in
G. De Leon
(ed.) Community as Method: Therapeutic Communities for Special
Populations and Special Settings , pp.
87—96.
Westport, CT: Praeger
.
15.
Linde, C.
(1999) `
The Transformation of Narrative Syntax into Institutional Memory', NarrativeInquiry9(1):
139—74
.
16.
Marshall, W.
,
D. Anderson
and
Y. Fernandez
(1999) Cognitive Behavioural Treatment of Sexual
Offenders .
New York: Wiley
.
17.
Mattingly, C.
(1994) `
The Concept of Therapeutic “Emplotment
”', Social Science & Medicine38(6):
811—22
.
18.
Mattingly, C.
(1998) Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative
Structure of Experience.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
19.
Piattelli-Palmarini, M.
(1994) Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our
Minds.
New York: Wiley
.
20.
Presser, L.
(2004) `
Violent Offenders, Moral Selves: Constructing Identities and Accounts in
the Research Interview
', Social Problems51(1):
82—101
.
21.
Robinson, J.A.
(1995) `Perspective, Meaning, and Remembering', in
D.C. Rubin
(ed.) Remembering our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory,
pp. 199—217.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
22.
Rubin, D.C.
(1995) `Introduction', in
D.C. Rubin
(ed.) Remembering our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory,
pp. 1—15.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
23.
Wikan, U.
(2000) `With Life in One's Lap: The Story of an Eye/I (or
Two)', in
C. Mattingly
and
L. Garro
(eds) Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and
Healing, pp. 212—36.
Berkeley : University of California Press
.
