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Living Within -- For Women in Prison           
   
   

Partnership South Carolina is a 501 (c)(3) organization providing resources and programs to positively impact mental health, education and growth through its program called Living Within. Our goal is to increase self awareness and personal responsibility among incarcerated women.

Did you know…..

  • The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world.
  • South Carolina spends the least number of dollars per inmate of any state in the USA.
  • Female prison population has been growing 1.5% faster than the male prison population.
  • 86% of women prisoners report previous physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse.

In July 2005, I began a dream group in a maximum security prison for women. At first it was an experiment - both for me and for the prison administration. This weekly group continues successfully!

Our group structure is based on a model developed by Montague Ullman, MD (http://siivola.org/monte).
  • Members attend voluntarily.
  • Confidentiality is required.
  • Laughter and tears are welcome.
  • Members maintain their dignity with the help of the group.
  • Members make deep meaningful connections in a safe place.
  • In-group sharing often leads to new relationships replacing isolation or harmful associations.
  • A few members don't return after one or two meetings when the truth of their dreams is too painful.
  • Others keep coming - group after group.

 

  
 

     “I had simply taken them as human beings …. I had interpreted them in the same way they had interpreted themselves all along….I had not offered them a cheap escape from guilt feelings by conceiving of them as victims of biological, psychological, or sociological conditioning processes. Nor had I taken them as helpless pawns on the battleground of id, ego, and superego. I had not provided them with an alibi. Guilt had not been taken away from them. I had not explained it away. I had taken them as peers. They learned that it was a prerogative of man to become guilty – and his responsibility to overcome guilt.”

Viktor Frankl describing his experience with prisoners at San Quentin (American Journal of Psychotherapy 3: 1949).

     “Dreams can be an invaluable aid in effective therapy. They represent an incisive restating of the patient's deeper problems.”

Irving Yalom, MD, today's most prominent group psychotherapy theorist (The Gift of Therapy , 2002).

     “Even major barriers like incarceration make no difference in dream work. We are all having the same kinds of dreams. We may respond to the dreams differently, but the symbolic information the dreams offer is essentially the same. The differences between the prisoners and others in society is in behaviors, and the nice thing about behaviors is that they can be changed.”

Jeremy Taylor, Unitarian minister and internationally recognized teacher of group dream work, speaking of his work at San Quentin (Sun Magazine, March 2006).
   
 

Web Links of Relevant Interest

Fresh Eyes Photography Project:  http://www.fresheyesproject.org

National Emotional Literacy Project for Prisoners: http://www.lionheart.org/prison_proj/about_nelpp.html

Upaya Zen Prison Project:  http://www.upaya.org/action/prisonprogram.php

Prison Dharma Network:  http://www.prisondharmanetwork.org/

Kairos Prison Ministry:  http://www.kairosprisonministry.org/templates/System/default.asp?id=23761

Dismas Ministry (Catholic):  http://www.dismasministry.org

The Gangaji Foundation Prison Program:  http://www.gangaji.org/satsang/programs/prison.asp

Human Kindness Foundation - Prison Ashram Program: http://www.humankindness.org/project.html

Indianopolis, IN Womens Prison Labyrinth -- www.humanityinunity.org/HIUnew/servinghumanity/indianawomensprison-labyrinth 
 
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