Remember the famous scene from Fight Club where Edward Norton’s character looks at Brad Pitt and says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” At first, it makes no sense — why would anyone ask to be punched? But then Pitt obliges, and the two launch into a ritual of brutal fights.
On the surface, it looks like violence for entertainment. But psychologically, it’s something deeper. The character is choosing physical pain as a way to avoid emotional pain. Why? Because physical pain is concrete — it has a beginning and an end. Emotional pain, on the other hand, is invisible, uncertain, and overwhelming. Many people would rather take a punch than feel grief, shame, or loneliness.
This avoidance of emotional pain is not confined to fiction. In correctional settings, it manifests in behaviors that complicate rehabilitation and often add years to a person’s sentence. People may not say “hit me” out loud, but they provoke fights, self-sabotage, or turn to reckless behaviors like substance use or illegal activity. Avoidance only works for a brief time, though. Where violence and drugs numb, resilience restores. That’s what we need to build for people — not places to avoid pain, but places to learn to endure and grow from the negative emotions we all experience.
The Reality of Corrections
Popular culture portrays prisons as filled with loud, angry, irredeemable people – those we have removed from society to ensure safety and peace in our communities. And if that were all, this article would be unnecessary. But today’s jails and prisons are filled with people suffering from mental illness, men and women who were doing the best they could with what they had, and individuals who never understood how to deal with their pain. Today, those inside are plagued with much more than just criminal thinking. As a clinical correctional psychologist, I’ve sat across from a serial predator, a man lost in delusions, and women who had been abused and trafficked since age six. I’ve also met individuals whose paths into crime were paved by poverty, racism, and addiction.
People in prison are complex long before they arrive, and time inside only intensifies their avoidant tendencies and problematic communication styles.
Resilience: More Than a Trait
Resilience, simply put, is the ability to overcome adversity, sit with negative feelings, and adapt to change. All individuals are born with a certain level of resilience, but outside influences, trauma, and support alike can impact how that resilience grows, diminishes, or is used. It is not just a trait, but a skill that can be nurtured. That very resilience, likely underdeveloped in this population, is the essential skill needed for individuals to survive incarceration, resist numbing themselves through substance use or violence, prepare for reentry, and maintain employment upon release.
Unfortunately, instead of fostering resilience, correctional environments often erode self-worth and demand mere survival.
What Builds Resilience
Environments that strip autonomy, choice, dignity, growth and privacy undermine resilience. Research shows that the following are key to fostering it:
• Supportive relationships and social connections
• Physical health, mindfulness, and self-care
• Purpose through goal-setting and meaningful activity
• Psychological safety and permission to ask for help
• Therapeutic environments with natural light, calming colors, and privacy
And yet, jails and prisons across the country make it difficult to connect with loved ones, charging for phone calls, emails, and stamps. We tell them when to shower, what to eat, and what job they will do, and we make it nearly impossible to find quiet space for self-reflection and peace.
Reflect on the coping strategies you’ve learned or developed — those that help you navigate difficult days. Maybe it’s going for a walk, taking a shower, calling a friend, eating a snack, or napping for a brief time. Now, imagine living in an environment where such strategies are inaccessible; showers are only when staff have time to let you out, finding a private, quiet space is impossible, and taking an unscheduled walk or run could earn you a conduct report. The very things we do in the free world to prevent us from making poor decisions are restricted or removed entirely from the population that desperately needs to find the coping skills that work for them. Without the ability to learn them or practice them, we return them home with little more than a new identification code – a DOC number.
Conclusion
Correctional facilities are filled with people carrying immense pain — incarcerated individuals and staff alike. The question is whether those environments will deepen avoidance and maladaptive coping strategies or nurture the capacity to endure and grow.
Justice design has the power to shape resilience. Facilities that offer light, privacy, connection, and dignity do not just improve conditions — they build skills for survival, reentry, and life beyond the walls. It’s time to reimagine correctional environments not as places of punishment but as platforms for healing. Let’s design for resilience — and in doing so, design for safer communities.
Dr. Deanna Dwenger, PsyD, HSPP, is Chief Behavioral Health Advisor for Elevatus Architecture.
References:
• Stringer, H. (2019). Improving mental health for inmates. *Monitor on Psychology*, 50(3). American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/03/mental-heath-inmates
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2024). *Countering Discrimination and Improving Recovery Supports Across Court, Corrections, and Reentry Settings*. https://library.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/countering-discrimination-pep24-08-008.pdf
• Ward, T., & Stewart, C. (2003). The Good Lives Model and conceptual issues in offender rehabilitation. *Psychology, Crime & Law*, 9(3), 213–230. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-14901-004
