Original version

BBC World Service News Internet

Heart and Soul

Documentaries

Religion & Ethics

Personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

No Master Brand

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC Afghan Radio

Heart and Soul: The killer's counsel

Counselling the killer

16/02/2024 GMT

The killer's counsel

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, The killer's counsel

Psychiatrist Gwen Adshead reflects on her faith and working with violent offenders

Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist working with the UK’s most violent offenders. How does her faith support and guide her in her work?

Doctor Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist working with the UK’s most violent offenders, many of them serving life sentences at Broadmoor Prison for murder. Gwen believes that empathy starts with a recognition that there is a capacity for evil in all of us. 

"My experience is that evil states of mind can be potentially found in everyone, and evil begins on the inside with a turning away from all that is healthy and beautiful in our lives," she says. She believes that for her patients, “no matter what their history”, therapeutic treatment works. 

Gwen speaks with the writer and convicted murderer Erwin James who died shortly after recording this interview. Together they reflect on Erwin’s life story and how he came to commit the crime he did.  Erwin describes his own relationship with therapy in prison and he asks Gwen about her relationship with Christianity and how it has supported her. ‘Faith and grace have kept me hopeful in my work with people who seem to have abandoned all hope’ she says.

Producer: Sarah Cuddon 
A Falling Tree production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Dr Gwen Adshead. Credit: Andy Vox)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Heart and Soul

The killer's counsel

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service News Internet

About BBC World Service