Mental Health Nurse's Use of Self in Carceral Psychiatry

Psychiatric wards can be described as carceral spaces – areas of control, surveillance and containment. This raises critical questions about the therapeutic practice in these environments. This presentation draws on doctoral research exploring how mental health nurses use ‘self’ in the therapeutic relationship with psychiatric patients. The ‘use of self’ refers to the intentional and authentic use of personal qualities of the nurse, relational skills, and emotional presence to engage with and care for their patients.This research is grounded in qualitative methodology, examining how nurses are required to negotiate their therapeutic role in spaces that are simultaneously custodial and caring. Nurses feel they have a dual role; continuously navigating tensions between institutional imperatives - risk management, compliance and control, and their commitment to person-centred care. Use of self becomes a subtle yet powerful form of resistance to the dehumanising aspects of carceral care. Nurses utilise their authentic selves and the cultivation of trust to build therapeutic relationships, even under the constraints of locked wards and coercive practices.This presentation demonstrates that the use of self by mental health nurses is not only a clinical tool, but a political and ethical act. It reframes nursing within carceral psychiatry as a site of relational agency, where therapeutic engagement can mitigate the structural violence inherent in institutional care. Use of self contributes to broader debates on care, control and resistance in carceral spaces, advocating for practice that prioritises relational ethics and patient voice as a means of disrupting dehumanising aspects of institutional care.