Some of the World’s Greatest Minds Are in Prison

by Bobby Bostic

From PHN Issue 29, Summer 2016

Prison is a place where you can find scholars of every kind. The system can lock up a person’s body, but they can’t incarcerate our minds. Right here, we have some of the world’s greatest minds. We have scientists, mathematicians, and preachers. In fact, many of you have excelled in the most difficult of all politics—prison politics. These politics can get really messy. But people in here network to make things happen on scales great and small. We must continue to apply ourselves and not settle for a label that society has placed on us. Continue reading “Some of the World’s Greatest Minds Are in Prison” →

Writing to Heal

By Lucy Gleysteen

From PHN Issue 29, Summer 2016

Painful emotions can sometimes feel unmanageable. If you are feeling an emotional crisis and don’t have someone to reach out to, you may want to shift your emotional state to something that feels more tolerable. Writing can act as one of the building blocks towards creating a degree of emotional safety for yourself. Continue reading “Writing to Heal” →

Finding Solace

By Thomas Michael Simmons, IPE

From PHN Issue 29, Summer 2016

Grief is a normal and natural experience that often involves powerful feelings—a reaction to significant emotional loss. Traumas such as catastrophic illness, job loss, divorce, abuse, harassment, amputation, injury, rape, and death of a loved one can trigger a process that brings intense anguish. Despite its inevitability, most are unprepared for its roller coaster ride of shock, anxiety, isolation, numbness, confusion, depression, anger, sadness, irritability, and sense of emptiness. Concentration is lost, eating and sleeping patterns shot. A world once familiar is now foreign and hostile to us. Yet, tomorrow still comes. Continue reading “Finding Solace” →

Surviving Your Stay in Solitary Confinement

By Russell Auguillard

From PHN Issue 29, Summer 2016

My days consist of reading, exercising, writing, studying criminal and civil law, working on my case, studying medical periodicals as well as other studies, and watching television programs. With these particular routines, I manage to basically keep myself occupied. Yes, of course, doing the same thing all the time has a tendency to get boring. But when it comes to that point, you can do the same thing but switch it up. Continue reading “Surviving Your Stay in Solitary Confinement” →

Mental Health Journaling

by Anonymous

From PHN Issue 28, Spring 2016

There are many ways to keep a journal. Because your journal is your own, you can set the guidelines of what it will be. You can use a blank notebook for your journal, or you can keep some blank pages together. Whatever way you choose to keep your own journal is the right way to do it. Continue reading “Mental Health Journaling” →

Aging in Prison

by the Gray Panthers, Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Graterford chapter

From PHN Issue 27, Winter 2016

Elderly people are now 12% of Pennsylvania’s prison population. The number of people 50 years of age or older in Graterford prison alone has increased to 25% of its total population, and the state’s hospice care facility was expanded. The Department of Corrections’ definition of elderly is those over age 50, for good reason. Prison culture stressors and lack of access to holistic healthcare cause “physiological aging” that could mean aging arrives up to 15 years sooner for people in prison. Prison age 50 is the new age 65! Continue reading “Aging in Prison” →

Getting from Monday to Tuesday: Coping with Long-term Incarceration

By Patrice L. Daniels

From PHN Issue 25, Summer 2015

Knowledge of Self: A better understanding of who I am (and am not) has given me a sense of security and confidence when facing whatever life throws at me—as well as whatever I decide to embark upon. Continue reading “Getting from Monday to Tuesday: Coping with Long-term Incarceration” →

PTSD: The Enemy Within

By S. Muhammad Hyland
From PHN Issue 23, Winter 2015

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that can arise after an actual or threatened death or serious injury to self or others, too often goes undiagnosed. Formerly known as shell shock syndrome, PTSD was once considered to plague only soldiers. Today, statistics tell a different story.

Neighborhood Violence

Denizens of inner cities across America also suffer from this dangerous disorder but routinely go unnoticed. If PTSD can be successfully used to defend violent criminal behavior perpetrated by current or former troops, it should work that same way for inner-city minorities. Both groups of people are subject to the same feelings created by their respective environments. Continue reading “PTSD: The Enemy Within” →

Is There Any Help for My OCD?

By Dean Stone

From PHN Issue 21, Summer 2014

If I had one nickel for every time I heard of someone here in prison having some odd behaviors or being labeled OCD, I’d be able to afford that crack team of lawyers who would get me out of here. But recent articles and books indicate that a great deal of progress in treating OCD can occur even without intensive psychotherapy or medication. People in prison have the opportunity to use the four-step treatment method outlined by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz in his book, Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior. Continue reading “Is There Any Help for My OCD?” →