Spotlight on psychology research shared

In its second Research Bulletin, our Academic Institute puts a focus on the wide-ranging research being carried out by our Psychology Department.

Set up in 2022, our Academic Institute aims to promote research and to further embed a robust research culture in SPMHS. It is also responsible for protecting the rights and wellbeing of service users, their families and staff throughout any research activity, and for raising awareness of research and its impact with our service users.

In each quarter of the year, the Academic Institute publishes a Research Bulletin to share news and updates from research activities in SPMHS.

You can see highlights from the bulletin below.

Psychology research

Dr Clodagh Dowling is the Director of Psychology here at SPMHS and an Adjunct Professor of Psychology. Clodagh explains that our Psychology Department is “passionate about conducting research as it keeps service users’ experiences and outcomes at the forefront of our work.” The department takes a scientific practitioner approach; this is an approach to psychology which is grounded in professional psychologists being informed in both clinical practice and research. For Clodagh, our Psychology Department values this approach as it “focuses on developing and delivering evidence-based treatments that are service user-centred and effective.”

The Psychology Department runs a number of group day programmes, and many have research programmes attached with them. The department consults with past service users by seeking guidance on the specific research questions asked, and continuously add their feedback into its programmes to improve them.

In the special feature of this issue of the Research Bulletin, Clodagh shares more on how research is central to the work of our Psychology Department and gives an overview of its key research programmes, some of which you can read about below.

Developing and assessing Group Radical Openness (GRO)

Dr Rachel Egan, Principal Clinical Psychologist, and Dr Richard Booth, former Director of Psychology, developed GRO, a new group therapy model to treat people who struggle with costly and harmful overcontrol. The group is transdiagnostic, which means it is suitable for people with various mental health diagnoses.

The GRO team produced a paper on the development of GRO in 2018 and, in 2021, a feasibility study to assess its suitability for treating overcontrol in 2021. In 2023, Dr Egan and Dr Booth published a book about GRO for clinicians and healthcare professionals.

This year, the GRO team published a qualitative study of GRO, led by Dr Violet Johnstone, Senior Counselling Psychologist, exploring service users’ attributions of change (or service users’ perception of change and the factors that caused it) after completing GRO. The GRO team is now working on a service evaluation paper that explores service users’ experiences of attending and engaging in GRO online.

Improving treatments for psychosis

The Psychology Department, similar to other clinical services, noticed that referrals for its psychosis group programme was lower than for other groups.

In response, the department ran a staff survey to understand potential blocks to referring people experiencing psychosis to a psychological group intervention. The survey findings and clinical observations resulted in a number of recommendations, which have since been put in place to improve the programme, which is now called Compassion-Focused Therapy for Psychosis (CFT-P). The research was led by Adjunct Associate Conal Twomey, Senior Clinical Psychologist, and is due shortly to be published in Psychosis, the official journal of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis.

The programme team also wanted to add psychological formulation to this group. In short, a psychological formation is a framework for understanding the connections between a person’s life story, characteristics, and behaviours. However, there is little currently known about how formulation impacts a CFT-P group. Dr Aisling O’Neill, in partnership with University College Dublin (UCD), is now conducting qualitative research with service users and staff to explore the impact of adding formulation to this programme.

Developing programmes for trauma

The Psychology Department developed the Trauma Programme after noticing a need for an intervention for complex trauma. This programme offers a phase-orientated approach to complex trauma, which means that it is delivered over a number of phases or stages.

Dr Niamh Willis, Clinical Psychologist, in partnership with UCD, conducted qualitative research exploring the impact of trauma and the role of compassion, before and after the programme. This study has been published in the European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. Emma Maloney, Psychologist in Clinical Training, has also recently completed research exploring the experiences of significant others who provide support to adults attending the Trauma Programme. The Trauma Programme team is looking forward to implementing and evaluating recommendations from this research.

In addition, the department developed a group formulation programme which has been further developed into a Young Adult Formulation Programme and an addiction formulation programme, known as Temple Formulation. In doing so, Dr Emer Long, Clinical Psychologist, led research, in conjunction with UCD, which showed that trauma, in various forms, plays a significant role in mental health difficulties and suggest benefits from attending group formulation. This research is currently under peer review.

Assessing experiences of a group for adolescents

Our Psychology Skills Group for Adolescents programme is led by Dr Kevin O’Hanrahan, Senior Clinical Psychologist. The group includes young people and their parents and teaches skills for emotional overcontrol and undercontrol (both of which relate to difficulties in managing emotion). Dr Ruth Cleary from the University of Galway conducted research exploring the experiences of young people, parents, and staff in this group. This paper was published earlier this year and highlighted the importance of a shared language for communicating emotions.

Supporting young adults

Dr James McElvaney, Senior Counselling Psychologist, is an international expert in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). James co-wrote a seminal, or very influential, book, Transforming Generalised Anxiety: An Emotion-Focused Approach, which is published by Routledge. James and Dylan Moore, Senior Counselling Psychologist, developed our EFT for Young Adults group (EFT-YA). James, Dylan and Georgina Heffernan, Psychologist in Clinical Training, presented outcome data from the group at an international EFT conference in 2023 and were also on an expert panel sharing their experiences of the group. In conjunction with UCD, Georgina is now looking at clinician and service users experience of EFT-YA.

Recent research outcomes and presentations

You can see our list of research publications to explore new research and academic output from our team, including papers exploring predictors of inpatient suicide, the use of personal therapy by psychiatrists and psychiatry trainees, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people experiencing an eating disorder in Ireland, and more.

At the College of Psychiatrists’ Spring Conference, which took place in April in Mullingar, several members of staff gave poster presentations on research activities. These included presentations on:

• An audit of the appropriate use of benzodiazepines in an inpatient cohort in St Patrick’s Hospital Lucan by Sean Barra O’Leary and Dr Sarah Prasad
• A mixed methods study of research needs of higher specialist trainees in psychiatry in Ireland by Eimear Counihan, Cornelia Carey, Anna Feeney, Kevin Lally, Ciara O’Connor, and Anne M Doherty
• The association between personality difficulties and electroconvulsive therapy outcomes in depression by Dr Cathal McCaffrey, Dr Ana Jelovac, Dr Martha Finnegan, Gabriele Gusciute, and Professor Declan McLoughlin.

Dr Clodagh Dowling took part in a round table discussion of the Ukrainian National Eating Disorder Association, examining eating disorders under conditions of prolonged stress.

In April, Ita Fitzgerald of our Pharmacy Department won a prize for the best presentation at the Health Services Research and Pharmacy Practice (HSRPP) Conference in University College Cork (UCC). Ita presented on a qualitative descriptive study on the development of guidance for antipsychotic-induced weight gain management.

Lisa Douglas from our Nursing Department presented a poster on a scoping review on developing an innovative model for virtual reality exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder at the Horatio Congress for psychiatric nurses in Malmo, Sweden in May.