Studies Completed in 2011: Regional, National and International Studies Recruiting in East London
Own Account Studies
An evaluation of well-being therapy in forensic rehabilitation
R&D ref. no. S0909/4
Chief Investigator: Dr. Gillian (Fergussun) Blostone - 020 8375 1897- gillblostone@gmail.com
Local point of contact: Dr Clare Bingham – 020 8510 2102 - clare.bingham@eastlondon.nhs.uk
Recent policy documents emphasise the importance of promoting recovery and supporting people with mental health problems. This involves identifying aspirations, maximising choices instilling hope and working towards positive future goals. A brief intervention that teaches goal-setting and planning skills (GAP) has been shown to increase well-being (MacLeod, Coates & Hertherton, 2007). It helps people identify positive life goals (in the domains of relationships, money, health, leisure, work, self-devolvement etc.) that are rewarding and meaningful (hence people are motivated to achieve), think of plans to achieve those goals, identify obstacles and how they will deal with them and implement steps to achieve goals. The GAP intervention may therefore empower service users to develop the necessary skills to be able to take up opportunities resulting in increased will-being and greater social inclusion.
The proposed research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the GAP intervention in a forensic inpatient setting. Pilot research in this area suggests that GAP training is associated with increased well-being and reduced depression and hopelessness (Ferguson, Conway, Endersbey & MacLeod, 2007). Forty service users will be randomly allocated to either a GAP group or a wait-list control group. Measures of well-being, future directed thinking, anxiety, depression, hopelessness and negative symptoms of psychosis will be collected pre-intervention, post-intervention and at one month follow-up.
Helping parents with mental health problems to parent young infants: A randomised controlled trial of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy (PIP) and Counselling.
R&D ref. no. K0601/6
Chief Investigator: Professor Peter Fonagy – 02076795960 - p.fonagy@ucl.ac.uk
Is Parent-Infant Psychotherapy, an intervention addressing the issues of parent-infant relationships with the participation of the infant, more beneficial to infant development and the parent-infant relationship than an intervention addressing mother's mental health issues alone?
Educational Projects
An Exploration of Service Users' Perspectives on Treatment Interventions for Personality Disordered Offenders in a Prison and a Secure Unit
Prison and a Secure UnitReDA ref. no. AD1101/2
Chief Investigator: Prof. Ray Bull -- 01162 297 017 -- RHB10@le.ac.uk
Local Point of Contact: Dr. Mark Freestone – 020 020 8510 2600 x2625 – mark.freestone@eastlondon.nhs.uk
Service users’ perspectives will be drawn in an effort to create a theory that will inform service delivery and shape interventions, specifically related to the challenges faced with working with this client group such as motivation, engagement and readiness for change. The study aims to benefit the service user by incorporating their voices into adapting treatment interventions and in which location they should occur to best suit their needs in order to foster behaviour change. The service users’ experience and perspective of the treatment intervention, diagnosis and the location, their thoughts behind treatment difficulties, and a comparison of the broad demographics across the prison and hospital will be explored. The sample will be taken from the mentally disordered offenders’’ population at both the Millfields Unit and HM Prison Brixton. Men over the age of 18 years who have at least one diagnosis or suspected diagnosis) of a personality disorder, and have been detained fro a minimum of four months and have either a care plan or sentence plan in place will be eligible to take part. The study is purely qualitative and data will be collected directly from service users through 90-minute semi-structured interviews. The interviews will be transcribed and analysed using the method of grounded theory and the themes within the theory will be compared with current psychological literature.
Understanding Predictors of Anger in Mentally Disordered Offenders
R&D ref. no. E1005/3
Chief Investigator: Tania Kalyani – 01784414012 – t.kalyani@rhul.ac.uk
The aim of this research is to explore the impact of authentic pride (feelings about objective sense of self), hubristic pride (feelings about subjective sense of self), shame, alexithymia (difficulty in processing emotions), posttraumatic symptomology, and self-concept on anger in violent mentally disordered offenders. It is hoped that the research will be able to inform clinical interventions around anger management and trauma in violent, mentally disordered offenders.
The objective of this research is to gain a better understanding of the effect of a number of variables (authentic pride, hubristic pride, shame, posttraumatic symptomology and self-concept) upon anger in a sample of mentally disordered violent offenders.
Clients and Therapists experience and understanding of sequential diagrammatic reformulations in Cognative Analytic Therapy
R&D ref. no. E1004/5
Chief Investigator: Jessica Osborne - jessosborne@hotmail.com
Local point of contact: Maxine Sacks - 020 8510 8661 - maxine.sacks@eastlondon.nhs.uk
The objective of this study is to gain a rich and detailed understanding of the experience of developing and using Sequential Diagrammatic Reformulations (SDRs) as part of and after Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) (Ryle & Kerr, 2002).
Constructing Care in the Community Together
R&D ref. no. A1009/1
Chief Investigator: Ms. Donna Oxley – 07884383626 – donna.oxley@gmail.com
My interest lies in using qualitative methods to examine the nature of ‘care planning’ in multidisciplinary mental health settings in the community. The overarching research question is how are care plans and their participants constructed in talk between service users, carers and professionals in the forum of a meeting, and in the written documentation of the care plan? Specific research questions include:
- How are constructs like ‘choice’, ‘collaboration’, ‘risk’, and ‘therapeutic benefit’ used?
- How are potentially different viewpoints (e.g., service user, professionals, carers) within the care planning process negotiated?
- What are the similariti4es and differences between the interactions during the meeting and the written documentation?