Institute of Public Health and Wellbeing

The main objective of this paper is to better understand the subjective experience of Bipolar Disorder. This paper adopts a phenomenological approach by combining elements of hermeneutics and existentialism to examine human existence and how we understand and engage with the human world when suffering from Bipolar Disorder. In summary, it will be proposed that BD is experienced as an altered reality based on fluctuating perceptions of time and reflections of the self. However, the role of therapy remains disputed among phenomenologists, thus further research is necessary to address the temporality of BD and the affect it has on insight, identity and the self. By doing this, a holistic interpretation of the illness can subjectify treatment and ensure individuals make their own informed decisions about the treatment they receive.

This thesis looked at the role of team sport in a custodial setting and explored its impact on the risk and experience of depression. It conducted qualitative research on five former offenders from the Nottingham area and interviewed them on the meaning of depression, the purpose of imprisonment, the experience of incarceration, the impact of sport in physical and mental health, and the provision of sport in prison. It considered the impact of sport on health and wellbeing in society and custodial settings, as well as the issues surrounding Her Majesty’s Prison Service and the concept of depression. A constructivist interpretation of depression has been utilised to avoid issues of contestation, and a thematic analysis of the data is presented and discussed in accordance with the literature to conclude that team sports have a positive effect on depression in prison. It also discovers that prison is not conducive to the health and wellbeing of offenders, and contradicts their right to health. The prison population is continuing to rise and HMPS is facing significant issues of overcrowding and violence. Offenders are not receiving the healthcare they need and HMPS is widely seen as overburdened with responsibility. Thus, the benefits of sport in a custodial setting are found to increase and intensify. Participation in sport can provide offenders with a source of happiness, a sense of self-worth and value, as well as instil moral and social values, and create a more therapeutic environment that can increase engagement in rehabilitation programmes. It is recommended that HMPS set out more direct and up-to-date guidelines on the provision of sport, with specific reference to the range of sport available and how long offenders should participate for per week. There is also impetus to expand this study further and conduct it on a national scale in order to better understand the needs of offenders.

According to the aims of imprisonment, prisons are supposed to provide security, protecting the public, staff and prisoners from harm. However, prisons fail to provide these protections. This chapter addresses the meaning, application and outcomes of prison ‘security’ by critically analyzing and theorizing data from an ethnographic study in an English male prison before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It finds that the use of force as a practice of security is a product of its own conditions, self-perpetuating a cycle of violence that produces unequal security. The paper challenges the meaning of prison security and invites researchers and policymakers to reconsider the role of the prison and what it is for or hopes to achieve.

Prisons are places of power and resistance. When the staff oppress prisoners, the latter participate in various forms of resistance, such as violence, substance misuse, riots, or protests to communicate a sense of injustice. Many of these struggles have been documented and discussed at length, revealing and communicating the national and local structures that produce them. However, potting remains a taboo on the wings and in criminological literature, where the use of bodily fluids as a means of prisoners rejecting penal power is rarely discussed beyond macro-political contexts. Drawing on symbolic interactionism and phenomenological approaches to knowledge, this paper challenges that taboo and proposes that potting is an embodied expression of oppression, a symbolic representation of prisoners' defilement and a physical transference of their sense of injustice. Potting is a pervasive and perverse form of resistance.

Sleep is a key factor in health and well-being outcomes, but its issues and opportunities are underexplored in institutions. The prevalence of poor sleep quality and insomnia is higher in institutionalised populations than in the general population, stimulating adverse mental and physical health and well-being outcomes, including violence. With supporting evidence from an ethnographic study in an adult male prison, this policy-oriented commentary discusses the relationship between sleep and behaviour, the lived experience of sleeping in institutions, and the opportunities to improve behavioural outcomes. It concludes that sleep deprivation contributes to a downward spiral and proposes three areas of intervention to promote a more person-centred sleeping environment for health and safety.