We Are All Doing Life Somewhere

By Lori Williams and Sandy Schulte

Take a therapeutic journey with four women who have life sentences in prison as they negotiate the three stages of therapeutic growth:
1. Stabilization and adjustment
2. Shift to responsibility
3. Existential life issues
This is a chronicle of their growth across twenty-plus years of incarceration, as expressed in poetry. Get to know these women through their struggles and their achievements as they stare down their demons. As you travel with them, you will learn that they are not much different than you. They have similar struggles, and you dont have to be in prison to have a life sentence because We Are All Doing Life Somewhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452552880

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Lori Williams and Sandy Schulte.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5287-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5288-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012910023

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Balboa Press rev. date: 07/17/12

Contents

Stabilization and Adjustment: 1 to 10 years

Fear

Despair

Stagnation

Shift to Responsibility: 10 - 20 years

Choice

Hope

Existential Life Issues: 20+ years

Integration

Redemption

Biographies

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work in prison. When I was young I saw myself as a helper, healer, teacher, and/or therapist to the incarcerated, not really knowing what any of that would look like. When I finally got to prison as a budding new psychologist, I still really had no idea what that would look like. I had no idea how my vulnerabilities would be exposed, how I would be humbled again and again, what my passion was, or how I would grow into a better, wiser, more compassionate human being. I had no idea that in this process I would be the teacher and the taught, as well as the healer and the healed. I had no idea