We welcome enquiries from potential referrers. If you are considering making a referral for a prisoner, then please contact us via email, telephone or by completing the form below. We will then arrange an initial telephone consultation with a senior clinician.

Symptoms vary depending on the type of personality disorder. For example, a person may have borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder or another type of personality disorder.

Personality disorder is the term used within mental health services to describe longstanding difficulties in how individuals think and feels about themselves and others, and consequently how they behave in relation to other people. Symptoms vary depending on the type of personality disorder.

Borderline personality disorder

People with borderline personality disorder (one of the most common types) tend to have disturbed ways of thinking, impulsive behaviour and problems controlling their emotions. They may have intense but unstable relationships and worry about people abandoning them. 

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disorder of mood and how a person interacts with others. In general, someone with a personality disorder will differ significantly from an average person in terms of how he or she thinks, perceives, feels or relates to others.

The symptoms of BPD can be grouped into four main areas:

  • emotional instability – the psychological term for this is affective dysregulation
  • disturbed patterns of thinking or perception – (cognitive distortions or perceptual distortions)
  • impulsive behaviour
  • intense but unstable relationships with others

The symptoms of a personality disorder may range from mild to severe and usually emerge in adolescence, persisting into adulthood.

Read more about the symptoms of BPD.

Antisocial personality disorder

People with antisocial personality disorder will typically get easily frustrated and have difficulty controlling their anger. They may blame other people for problems in their life, and be aggressive and violent, upsetting others with their behaviour.

Antisocial personality disorder is a particularly challenging type of personality disorder, characterised by impulsive, irresponsible and often criminal behaviour.

Someone with antisocial personality disorder will typically be manipulative, deceitful and reckless, and won't care for other people's feelings.

Like other types of personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder is on a spectrum, which means it can range in severity from occasional bad behaviour to repeatedly breaking the law and committing serious crimes. Psychopaths are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality disorder.

Read more about antisocial personality disorder.

You can also read about the other types of personality disorder on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website.

Someone with a personality disorder may also have other mental health problems, such as depression and substance abuse.

Our referral criteria set out a range of inclusion and exclusion factors we may consider when deciding whether to accept a referral for a prisoner who is trying to access our treatment service.

Inclusion

  • The prisoner’s offender manager (OM) is to be in the North of England (unless exceptional criteria).
  • The prisoner is to have a minimum of three years and less than 20 years to serve.
  • The prisoner and his offender manager (OM)/offender supervisor (OS) are to be in agreement with the referral.
  • The prisoner is to be aware of and be able to manage on normal location as the Beacon is not a vulnerable prison (VP) unit, ie the prisoner will be aware of and agreeable to living in a mixed offence environment (which includes men who have committed both violent and sexual offences).
  • The prisoner is to have a personality disorder or significant personality difficulties.
  • There has to be a clinically justifiable link between the prisoner’s personality needs and his risk/offending.
  • The prisoner has to be assessed as presenting a high likelihood of violent or sexual offence repetition and a high/very high risk of harm to self/others.
  • There has to be evidence of the prisoner’s ability to engage with and benefit from treatment.
  • The prisoner has to be motivated to come to the Beacon to address his needs and to make changes.
  • The prisoner’s co-morbid needs (mental illness/cognitive difficulties/autistic spectrum difficulties) must be stable and/or at a level to allow the prisoner to engage in and benefit from the programme.

Exclusion

  • Primary needs/diagnosis of mental illness, learning disability, cognitive difficulties, acquired brain injury, autistic spectrum disorder (ie these are primary factors for risk and/or at a level preventing Beacon engagement).
  • Primary/acute substance use needs, including ongoing/persistent misuse of prescribed medication.
  • Where prisoners may be in denial of their offence(s), the implications of this for their treatment, engagement and benefit from the Beacon will be considered.
  • Evidence of acute/imminent and persistent high risk to others/self, eg recent ongoing incidents of physical aggression/harm to others, persistent and severe self-injury.

Please note that prisoners who are in their parole window or less than three months away from their parole window opening cannot be accepted for referral.

Previous treatment

Given that we are a treatment service, we are interested to know how an individual has previously engaged with and benefitted from treatment.  We recognise that difficulties in this area can be the result of complex personality traits and therefore poor engagement is not an exclusion criterion.

Having a personality disorder can have a big effect on the person's life, as well as their family and friends, but support is available.

Having a personality disorder can have a big effect on the person's life, as well as their family and friends, but support is available.

If you'd like support for yourself or someone you know, you may find the following links useful:

Useful Contacts

Help for those with personality disorders

  • Your Health in Mind - Self-care for borderline personality disorder
  • Mind - How can I help my-self? (Self-care advice)
  • Time To Change – Personal stories and blogs from people with BPD

Helping someone with personality disorder

Resources

Ask your GP about support groups for personality disorders near you. Or find out what mental health services exist and how to access them.

Information needed prior to initial telephone consultation

Basic identification details

Name and date of birth, prison number and current location

Name and base of the offender manager

The Beacon is for prisoners who have an offender manager based in the north sector of the country, ie Northumbria; Cumbria; Durham Tees Valley; North, West and South Yorkshire; Humberside (including North and North East Lincolnshire); Lancashire; Greater Manchester; Merseyside; Cheshire; North Midlands; and North Wales.

Index offence and sentence details

It is anticipated that a prisoner will spend about two years within the treatment service. Therefore, in most circumstances, there would need to be a period after treatment that would be available for the prisoner to test out his improvement in a lower secure environment or in the community under licensed supervision.

History of previous offending

We need to start to understand the level of risk and review previous offences.

Any psychiatric or psychological assessments

We are interested in previous clinical assessments, particularly where there has been a comment about diagnosis or formulation.

Previous engagement/treatment

Information about any ongoing contact with clinicians, previous treatments or courses.  In this event it is likely that we would make contact with those clinicians to understand more about work completed.

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