Attitudes and change in suicidality and self harm

Abstract

This thesis comprises two volumes, representing the research and clinical components submitted to the University of Birmingham in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology (D.ClinPsy).

The first volume is the research component and contains three papers. The first paper is a literature review of research into healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards working with suicidality and people who self-harm. The review considers the presence and type of attitudes, followed by possible mediating factors.

The second paper is an empirical study which describes the rationale, process and results of a Mindfulness based intervention on reducing vulnerability to suicidality in young adults. The study adopts a mixed methods approach, and analyses self-report questionnaire data using the reliable change index, and semi-structured interview data using template analysis.

The third paper describes the literature review and empirical paper in language appropriate for dissemination to the general public.

The second volume is the clinical component containing four Clinical Practice Reports. They include a paper which formulates a client’s case from two different psychological perspectives, a service evaluation, a single case experimental design and a case study. The fifth report is an abstract, describing a clinical presentation of a case study.