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Female involvement with the criminal justice system can prompt significant internal dissonance as well as challenge conceptualizations around female violence, motherhood, mental illness etc. Forensic psychotherapist Anna Motz joins us for a fascinating discussion of her book “If Love Could Kill: The Myths & Truths of Women Who Commit Violence”. In this discussion we cover:

why Anna wanted to write this book and the underlying message of the title (“If Love Could Kill”)
why Anna has gravitated to the psychodynamic model for working with female offenders
the role that trauma plays in these clinical cases
how myths, assumptions & expectations about motherhood/woman in general play into the way we see & conceptualize these clients within the justice system as well as media
media coverage of female sexual offenders
media portrayal of female custodial environments e.g. Orange is the New Black
the added complications of having children involved in these cases
the absolute need to be able to hold opposites/dialectics in considering these cases with humanity/objectivity
the relegation of these woman to society’s “shadow" and how we might integrate them as individuals
managing vicarious/secondary trauma when working with this population
maintaining positive regard in the context of some very challenging client behaviour
a brief meditation on the implications of the cases for conceptualizations of free will
the rise of the True Crime genre and what it might say about us as a society

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Anna Motz was born in Oxford, England, and raised in New York City. She received a degree in psychology from Oxford University. She lives and works in Oxfordshire as a consultant clinical and forensic psychologist and psychotherapist for Central and North West London NHS Trust, providing specialist consultation, assessment, and treatment for high-risk women, in partnership with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Motz is a member of the Advisory Board for Female Offenders, under the UK Ministry of Justice.

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