Results of using pattern analysis grounded in HEC allowed the incarcerated women to reflect upon past choices and gain a new understanding of their life patterns. This new understanding allowed the women to choose different courses of action in the future. The findings from this exploratory study suggest that using HEC with incarcerated women has the potential to increase their personal awareness and freedom. The setting of the study was a minimum-medium security prison in the Northeast and the participants were the nurse assigned to the prison and two incarcerated mothers awaiting release. The intent was to use pattern recognition as a strategy to assess incarcerated mothers’ life experiences. The nurse met with each mother three times annually. During the first meeting, the women were asked to reflect on meaningful events and people in their lives. The second and third meetings focused on reflecting, discussing, and revising the nurse’s pattern representation with the mothers. The process of pattern recognition with the two women is described. HEC has three basic components: (1) health is a unitary pattern of the whole; (2) expanding consciousness is seen as the evolving pattern of person-environment interaction; and (3) the concepts of movement-space-time are embedded in patterns of evolving consciousness. The HEC theory proposes that when movement-time-space is restricted, such as during incarceration, it presents an opportunity to recognize life patterns and in the process, change those patterns and make new choices. This process occurs through dialog, and an important part of the process of HEC is the partnership between the nurse and the client. The process involves reflecting on past patterns and making choices that will result in new actions that move them to new places in their lives. Incarceration is considered an optimal time to make such changes. Tables, references