Travelling Memories: Repairing the Past and Imagining the Future in Medium-Secure Forensic Psychiatric Care

Remembering can act as a work of connecting past and present, providing a connective tissue for making lives meaningful. In cases where the remembered past is traumatic or ‘difficult’ in some way, remembering constitutes an act of repair that is grounded in the very specific ecological settings and practices in which the person is located. In this piece, we discuss the case of mental health service users detained within a secure forensic inpatient mental health facility where remembering intersects with a broader notion of mental health ‘recovery’. We describe the ways in which memory comes to matter for patients and the dilemmas this creates. We focus in particular on the informal practices adopted by ward staff as they support patients’ memory work. We argue that a ‘process-ecological’ approach to remembering can inform practical decisions are around care planning and the ward design of the setting.