Discursive Psychology Interpretation of Inmates’ Wellbeing in Olokuta Prison Counselling Interactions, Akure

Abstract

This study is a discursive psychology interpretation of inmates’ wellbeing during prison counselling sessions in the Olokuta Medium Security Prisons (MSP), Akure, Ondo State. To achieve this, the study investigates phonosyntactic elements in prison counselling discourse, and addresses interpretation of codes under utterance forms as a strategy that enhances inmates’ overall wellbeing during PCI. The Prison Counsellor and/or Clinical Psychologist (PC/CP) employ interactive devices such as elicitation in talk, punishment distancing and encouragement/motivation; the inmate clients construct scripts like self-revelation, offence confession and behavioural change. These interactive responses were drawn from such counselling issues as relating, understanding and changing. Social, physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing, as well as life satisfaction are wellbeing components mined from PCI. This study emphasized some counselling issues with psychological insinuations which PCs, CPs and ICs construct in the discourse of prison counselling, their linguistic interactive responses and phonosyntactic implication on wellbeing This study examines psychologically-based linguistic indices emanating from counselling interlocutors and the interactive responses ensuing from such interactions in the Olokuta Medium Security Prison, Akure, Ondo State. It looks at prison counselling interaction as a means of creating social bonding between two socially unequal hierarchies (prison officials functioning as either prison counsellors or counselling psychologists and prison inmates functioning as inmate clients), enhancing wellbeing components, eliminating stress-induced factors in a prison setting, and establishing peace in the prison society which may extend to the world outside the prison walls. Prison counselling