Gandalf's mother and other stories: the dark side of forensic psychotherapy

Abstract

This article attempts to develop Estela V. Welldon's (1988) theory regarding perverse action in women, where women act against their own bodies, or against their babies, when they are experienced as part-objects not individuated from themselves. I attempt to apply this theory to twentieth-century Irish national identity in which a state policy, underwritten by the Irish Catholic Church, idealised women, and in particular motherhood, with disastrous outcomes for some women. This policy took the form of the Magdalene Laundry Asylum system which was a "secret" hiding in plain sight from 1922 to 1996. I draw parallels between this historically abusive system and what I believe to be the toxic Public Law Outline (PLO) system used in the UK today. The PLO sets out the duties local authorities have when thinking about taking a child from its parents. It involves social workers taking a case to court in a procedure which is ironically enough named a "care order". Psychologists can be asked to provide expert testimony regarding the fitness or otherwise of parents caught up in the PLO system and thus be instrumental in breaking up families. We might call this the dark side of forensic psychotherapy. All identifying materials in this article have been anonymised and, in some cases, stories have been amalgamated to protect patients' identities.