Somewhere between hell and salvation: Emotionally mapping the liminal space of addiction therapeutic communities in prison

Amid an escalation in drug dependency and a deterioration in prisoners' mental health and wellbeing, the role of addiction Therapeutic Communities (TCs) in prison to deliver effective therapy becomes ever more important. With around 50% of UK male prisoners addicted to substances (Crime, Justice, and Law, 2023), it is imperative to understand prison therapy in depth and the nuanced mechanisms that make it most effective.

Treatment is intense and transformative, overtly disrupting thinking processes while altering emotional responses, rendering individuals in a ritual of change, reflective of Turners (1969) liminality and rites of passage. This study will explore TC space and the manner in which human senses and emotion intersect with architecture and spatial designs to impact behaviour and changes in personality (Jewkes and Laws, 2021).

Within a framework of liminality (Turner, 1969), this suggests unstable zones of change are transitional climates that may be unsettling but create equality amongst social actors, yet the convergence of space and emotion in male addiction therapeutic communities remains sparsely documented. This study seeks to explore the intimate and potentially hidden relationships between space, emotion, and sensory experience to uncover new insights into the construction of therapy interventions and resident experience.

The objectives are dual focused; firstly, to gain insights into specific spatial areas of addiction TCs such as casual spaces, (less intense settings), sacred spaces (therapeutic), living spaces, special space (unique) and measure the emotional and sensory responses from residents in relation to these liminal spaces. Secondly if residents are liminal entities passing through a state of suspension and transition, how does this betwixt and between space impact identity and sensory experience?

Mapping of emotional responses may offer insights into the way architecture and emotion intersect to shape identity, moods, desires, sensory perception, and the ability to heal. There may be complex and intrusive emotional barriers that appear innocuous to others, for example, a cell becomes a room, a prisoner becomes a resident, emotionally how does this impact individuals?

Prison TCs are unique climates that combine penal architecture and healing aesthetics that imbue meaning and influence into those that call it home. Aims

1. To explore how specific liminal spaces in TC design evoke emotional responses and how the mapping of these emotional adaptions may offer insights into the overall TC experience.

2. To understand how the transformative state of therapeutic applications impacts identity and sensory experience in prisons.

3. To comprehend the emotional geography of TC climates in relation to the contrasting penal philosophies of retribution and rehabilitation, and how this effects liminal states.

4. To consider how the widely recognised sensory overload that is intimately linked to the post detoxification experience impacts emotion, identity, and concepts of space in prison.

This research fills a large gap regarding the intersection of emotion and space in male therapeutic climates. This study will also lean on Herrity`s, (2019) work that explores the senses in carceral spaces. This research will offer a novel and original insight into space, senses, and emotion within addiction therapeutic climates through the lens of Turners liminality and rites of passage.