Overcoming Fear And Bias As A Clinician Essay Example for Free

Overcoming Fear And Bias As A Clinician Essay A special challenge that mental health personnel in prison facilities deal with is the setting of their profession. Exposure to convicted felons, being subject to security sanctions and dealing with individuals under constant stress creates tests an individual’s professional and personal integrity and capability. The fears and biases associated with prisons and inmates stems from the very nature of crime and punishment. The reservation felt is indicative and at the same reinforces the social consequence of violating laws. According to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (2007) it is important to develop an understanding of the fears, attitudes, or biases related to prison interventions and how it affects the interactions between the therapist, the intervention program and the client. This is supported by Ward and Stewart (2003): they emphasize the need to develop models and insights to the to therapeutic intervention to better facilitate not only rehabilitation but also crinimogenic, social and individual needs of mental health personnel and clients in prison settings. The attitude of mental health personnel to the circumstance of their practice, both on a personal and professional level, is critical element in the success of therapy and interventions. The professional training of mental health personnel aims to crate attitudes to alleviate the stigma because of the basic objective of therapy to create a means of transcending the motivation or conditions that contributed to acts leading to clients’ convictions (Belenko et al, 2003). Thus, the mental health professional should be able to assess his personal fears, attitudes or biases, outline its mode of impact to his practice and determine the level of control he has over these elements. This requires not only self-examination but may also require consultation with other professionals and studies dealing with similar scenarios.