Laura Aslan

Laura was employed within the prison service for over 6 years working to rehabilitate prisoners through their sentence and on release. Her psychological and therapist roles have focused mainly on cognitive behavioural therapy, anger management, substance misuse, personality disorder, deafness and forensic mental health. Laura worked at Phoenix Futures, the fourth largest drug and alcohol treatment provider in the UK, as their lead researcher for 2 years. Here she coordinated and conducted primary research, reviewed and developed the evidence base for substance misuse interventions and contributed to the development of new treatment models. Laura spent time studying women in treatment, recovery through nature, mutual aid, motivation and engagement and worked to raise awareness of recovery from addiction. Laura has an MSc in Forensic Psychology and published her dissertation literature review on Deaf offenders and sexual offending within the Journal of Sexual Aggression. Laura’s final thesis focused on engagement, motivation and readiness with high-risk offenders on prison offending behaviour programmes. Laura has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Stirling since 2013 and is a reviewer and guest editor for the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities. Laura has published a paper in the 2015, special Addiction issue of this journal looking at Therapeutic Community drop-outs and their success post treatment. Laura also reviews for the Journal of Groups in Addiction and Recovery and the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. Future research interests surround Therapeutic Communities, personality disorder and the Travelling Community.