Practice of silence to promote coping, emotion regulation, and future planning of imprisoned individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study

Figures & data

Table 1. 10 Keys to resilience (mod. Paoletti, Di Giuseppe, Lillo, Ben-Soussan, et al., 2022).

Key	Neuropsychopedagogical Principle	Strategy
1. Focus on what you can control and make small decisions	Observation and Self-observation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011a)	Bringing attention to the here and now, and making small decisions to overcome uncertainty
2. Identify an attainable, exciting, measurable goal	Observation and Self-observation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011a)	Setting goals, foreseeing obstacles, and cultivating positive beliefs
3. Several times a day become aware of your posture	Observation and Self-observation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011a)	Setting body posture for physical activation, raising attention, and self-confidence
4. Be inspired by stories	Mediation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011b)	Following resilience role-models
5. Ask yourself what is really important	Mediation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011b)	Training in self-motivation, listening to your most intimate preferences
6. Cultivate gratitude	Mediation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2011b)	Learning to cultivate positive emotions (e.g., gratitude) and to manage negative emotions
7. Appreciate the other as a resource, cultivate and expand your social network	Translation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2012)	Listening, sharing experiences, and enhancing social and interpersonal resources
8. Cultivate curiosity	Translation (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2012)	Learning from everything and every experience
9. Practice a few minutes of silence	Normalization (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2013)	Practicing intentional silence multiple times a day, envisioning the best version of yourself
10. Embrace and transform: before bedtime, generate your tomorrow today	Normalization (Paoletti & Selvaggio, 2013)	Self-programming and foreshadowing of the future through proactive storytelling of daily life

Note. The 10 Keys to Resilience are theoretical-practical directions that (i) describe the processes of resilient brain functioning and (ii) support the process of mindfulness through the proactive cognitive re-signification of experience, enhancing emotion regulation processes, and the individual’s physical well-being. In conjunction, these 10 dimensions create an expanded conceptualization of resilience, in which individuals train themselves to overcome adversity in order to transform difficulties into an opportunity for personal and collective growth (Paoletti, Di Giuseppe, Lillo, Anella, et al., 2022).

Figure 1. Coding tree of the categories identified through content analysis, tagging and thematic analysis of the full text interviews with 23 imprisoned individuals participating in the research [N = number of interviews/recurrence of the topic].

Table 2. Self-report excerpts selected for the ‘silence and coping’ category identified by text analysis.

Category

Self-report excerpts

Silence and coping

INT003a: … every now and then, maybe a moment of despair takes me, a moment of anger takes me, (when this happens) I go to reread, I think about what was said at that particular moment (during the lessons) and I say ‘wait, I’ll try again.’ I take note of the knowledge and just relax … INT004b: The technique of silence is a bit difficult to apply here, because, as we said during the course, there is a lot of noise here; therefore, it is a bit difficult to find a quiet place … but by now I am a little used to the noise … it was interesting to relax a bit without having thoughts … I think it is something to be explored … they said: ‘… try to be silent for a minute or two…’ but if you do it the first time it is one thing, if you do it every day, together with other techniques, then you can see the difference. INT005a: We have learned so many things… how to overcome problems, that you don’t have to be anxious, that you can take minutes of silence, that you have to breathe, that you can take a deep breath… that’s it… INT006a: In the silence I started to try to deal with things in a positive way and also how you have to react… not going for drugs like I did in the past. INT008a: I take the key to silence as meditation, meditation plus relaxation … as in yoga … it helps you to relax, not to think about (negative things) … but, let’s say, think about positive things. It gives you good energy. INT013a: When I find problems, even if it’s personal, meditating alone and deep breathing help me to come back to who I was. Now I start doing that, I’m in single cell, you can really see, if I have a problem, I can’t solve it. I do deep breathing – it makes me feel that I’m free – I can even manage to talk to others…

Table 3. Self-report excerpts selected for the ‘silence and emotion regulation’ category identified by text analysis.

Category

Self-report excerpts

Silence and emotional regulation

INT003a: ‘there is no meditation without silence’ and I just wrote this here, just … underlined … (…) it increases the possibility of self-isolation, [so] you would be able to escape in your head for a moment, to be with yourself, otherwise … anyway, this experience, I tell you: first of all it is a pity that it is over (…) because you dissociate yourself from this environment, it is like being in a group outside, outside, just an external meeting … it is a surreal experience, (…) especially as regards oneself with others … many things of what she (the psychologist) said I already did previously in here, due to the character that I … I tried so much to talk to others to make them understand, maybe when they were in difficulty, to give comfort, to seek comfort in certain moments, but it is difficult, because everyone has his own vision of the environment … so many are available, many say, as I said before, ‘now I’m here’ and surrender to themselves … INT005a: Very good experience, I learned a lot about how to relax… Now I can take that breath again and start thinking positive… When something comes to stress me, I’m thinking positive, it helped me a lot the course. INT010a: Something happened that made me feel bad. I get ‘this thing’ and I got huffy… I was in an indescribable agitation. I go to the cell and the only thing I get to do is the minute of silence. I was charged, charged with nervousness. All of a sudden, I get a rush of energy… then I opened my eyes and felt peaceful and calm. INT011a: I practiced 5 minutes of silence once, 5 another time, then 10 minutes… I didn’t remember things anymore… processes… I got into my bunk and went to sleep and so it was helpful. For me it was useful for an inner tranquility. INT012a: We have to do what we can with what we have … In my opinion this wins here … There are therefore some ideas that have revitalized, maybe that part of me that could break down … INT014b … in my opinion there should be a minute of silence and a minute to let off steam … because that minute of silence, well … during the course it was nice because the psychologists talked, everyone said their feeling … doing it alone has no sense in my opinion, even if it can help you free yourself a little. But the pain you have always remains inside, so … it would take more staff who give a hand to the inmates in addition to this minute of silence but also to vent the problems that one can accumulate …

Table 4. Self-report excerpts selected for the ‘silence and future planning’ category identified by the text analysis.

Category

Self-report excerpts

Silence and future planning

INTt007a: Setting yourself a goal … before setting something concrete you must accept your current situation and accepting the current situation in prison means accepting what you did before … INT007b: ‘yes I’m in jail, but when I go out what do I do?’ … we realized we could have skills, maybe we didn’t know we had … the course helps you to become like this, let’s say (proactive), it helps you to learn these things, but then it’s you who must learn in life … INT0008a: … (this course) gives you good energies. See things more positively than negatively, right? The course is very, very intense you know… It is very, very thorough, let’s say, in seeing positive things… it makes you reflect, look at things better, try to have, to see a light on the future. INT009a: … (this course) is better than learning from a piece of paper. Because reading on a piece of paper you understand it relatively but when another person makes you see it and understand it… when (the teacher) said to take a minute of silence and we performed it… and did we do it because she told us to? No, because we also wanted to… She made us understand how to do it and we put it into practice. That made me understand the different point of view -- when I get out of here that I will not stop taking this time to relax, to understand, to be with myself… INT011b: It has been very useful to me, in this very moment I can say it, but more than anything I can say it will be very useful to me in the future, this is a very important aspect. That minute of silence where you empty your mind and think back to what you went through during the day are techniques that you find yourself doing even afterwards and you do them unconsciously and they were a very important aspect of this project. INT013b: Envisioning the future made me understand many things. That a person can have a chance … who has attended this course … (did it) even for his maturation right? It made me realize … to find yourself and something about yourself …

Paoletti, P., Di Giuseppe, T., Lillo, C., Ben-Soussan, T. D., Bozkurt, A., Tabibnia, G., Kelmendi, K., Warthe, G. W., Leshem, R., Bigo, V., Ireri, A., Mwangi, C., Bhattacharya, N., & Perasso, G. F. (2022). What can we learn from the Covid-19 pandemic? Resilience for the future and neuropsychopedagogical insights. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 993991. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.993991

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