Not all women fancy single-sex wards

Reflections on the education and training of mental health staff who work with women who have been sexually abused in childhood

Strategies to reduce sexual assault on women patients in mental health inpatient acute wards have included effective policies, a consistent approach to recording and monitoring data relating to incidences of sexual assault, increased staff levels and improvements in the ward layout. A series of workshops were devised to enable mental health staff to work with greater awareness and sensitivity to keep women patients safer on inpatient wards. What emerged in particular during the training was the ways in which staff felt at loss as to how to build therapeutic relationships with women patients, particularly those with histories of sexual abuse. These patients may repeat early ways of relating which may at times be a challenge for the staff caring for them. This paper suggests that psychoanalytic insights offer an understanding of these ways of relating. This can be combined with frequent and supportive supervision to enable staff to safely articulate their often troubling responses to caring for women patients, this creating a caring and supportive environment for staff.