Pia Faeth | The Supporting Mental health services for Young peopLE (SMYLE) study

Session 1 - Time: 13:20

The SMYLE study investigates barriers and facilitators to young people’s engagement with mental health services. In my presentation I will talk about the three project phases and the changes we had to make in response to Covid-19 such as online stakeholder engagement. 

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Chan Wei Xin | Psychological treatment for distress from depersonalisation/derealisation

Session 1 - Time: 13:26

Half the population is projected to experience at least one episode of depersonalisation/derealisation in their lifetime. I will report how an individual may present with depersonalistion/derealisation, and the psychological therapies proposed to support impacted persons. I conducted a systematic literature review and identified cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) as the most established psychological treatment and will discuss why person-centred experiential therapy, though yet to be substantiated as evidence-based practice in this area of psychological presentations, comprises of elements that demonstrate the potential to alleviate the impact of depersonalisation/derealisation.

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Sahen Gupta | "Sporting Resilience": Evaluating Research, Building Theory and Forging a Construct

Session 1 - Time: 13:32

Resilience is a construct that is gaining importance in sport but has confusions surrounding its nature and clarity. I will share my work on evaluating resilience research in sport using a systematic review. The experiences of creating a theoretical model and a grounded theory empirical sporting resilience model. I will discuss ways forward and roadblocks to research experiences. A brief outline of adapting research to help society via dissemination from a recently published paper on Sporting Resilience during COVID-19 will also be provided.

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Kareena McAloney-Kocaman | The COVID-19 psychological wellbeing study: Trajectories of depression, anxiety, and PTSD during the first 12 weeks of lockdown

Session 1 - Time: 13:38

The COVID-19 pandemic has had substantial impact on mental health. In this study we identify trajectories of anxiety, depression and PTSD symptomology during the first UK national lockdown, using growth mixture modelling, and identify risk and protective factors for mental health.

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Jo McParland | Pain and Work

Session 1 - Time: 13:44

TBC

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Cass Macgregor | What is acceptance of chronic pain: A meta-ethnography

Session 1 - Time: 13:50

The concept of acceptance of chronic pain is often understood through the lens of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy – a pain management option available in tertiary health care which has come to dominate the discourse on the topic. Yet, the small number of qualitative studies covering the lived experience of acceptance of chronic pain suggest a broader concept. The role that the health service plays in this concept is also unclear. A meta-ethnography of the lived experience of acceptance of chronic pain is planned, using patient public involvement.

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Chris Hand | Understanding abuse on social media: victim-blaming and perceived severity

Session 1 - Time: 13:56

Three recent studies have investigated how the volume of abuse received on social media, victim-generated content, and observer characteristics impact victim-blaming and perceived incident severity (Hand et al., 2021; Scott et al., 2019; Scott, Brodie, et al., 2020). I will present ongoing work which expands this research to consider female victims, and furthermore, to revisit the concept of attractiveness – as both being affected by abuse, but also as a mitigating factor affecting impression formation.

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Alex Oliver | Shining the light: Understanding concentration skills of athletes

Session 1 - Time: 14:02

Concentration is a pre-requisite for successful sporting performance and athletes must possess awareness, knowledge, and controllability of their attention to concentrate effectively. Meta-attention allows us to understand these processes and illuminate the underlying cognitive mechanisms that allow athletes to direct their attentional spotlight.

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Sarah Renouf | Exploring ethnicity and relational depth within the therapeutic relationship for trainee counselling psychologists

Session 2 - Time: 13:20

Although multicultural competence within the therapeutic relationship is not a new topic, there is a lack of research exploring the impact of cultural diversity, specifically ethnicity, on the therapeutic relationship in the context of contemporary person-centred approaches such as relational depth (defined most simply as a feeling of profound contact and engagement with another). It is important to explore how the therapeutic relationship may be impacted when the client and therapist are of a different ethnicity to each other, and the implications this has for counselling psychologists on how to cultivate relational depth with these clients.

 

Simon Hunter | Gamifying interventions to tackle loneliness in adolescence.

Session 2 - Time: 13:26

Social isolation and loneliness during adolescence has strong links with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. There is therefore a clear and urgent need for scalable intervention programmes to address loneliness. I'll discuss ongoing work developing, with colleagues at the University of Western Australia, a gamified loneliness intervention. I will also introduce a newly funded project which seeks to adapt the intervention for young people experiencing a range of neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Hannah Jeffray | Counselling Psychologists’ experiences of working with a client who has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder

Session 2 - Time: 13:32

To my knowledge, there is no primary data on Counselling Psychologists‘ experiences of working with Borderline Personality Disorder. Counselling Psychologists taking a more holistic approach to treatment differs from the more traditional medical approach.  These differences and their impact are part of what I hope to understand from my research. My study aims to improve our knowledge of how we support people with BPD. I will discuss the rationale, aims and research design of my study. 

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Peter Taggart | The Impostor Phenomenon in Students and Counselling Psychology

Session 2 - Time: 13:38

A brief description on how the Impostor Phenomenon can arise in counselling psychology students based upon my Stage 3 research project. I’ll start by describing how it manifests particularly in academia and move onto talking about my research. This will involve a brief description of the methodology and findings of the main themes produced by thematic analysis. I’ll finish by talking about ways that trainees and students can help combat the anxiety and effects of the impostor phenomenon.

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Elaine Duncan | Writing the wrongs

Session 2 - Time: 13:44

Research suggests that people say an emphatic YES to the following question ..."is writing about life's ups and downs good for you?" On that basis you might be thinking you should start or restart journaling about your life right now! However, a plethora of research testing whether writing interventions do lessen psychological distress or boost wellbeing don't paint such a rosy picture. In my short talk I simply want to raise awareness of the pros and cons of 'writing the wrongs'.

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Tabita Kristel | Development of a psychological service with a charity in Scotland while on placement

Session 2 - Time: 13:50

Starting your own independent business can seem an impossible task to do. However, having the support and sharing resources of an organisation can reduce feelings of ineptitude. I will discuss the challenges that can rise from starting a service within an organisation, both professionally and personally, and also the benefits of undertaking such projects.

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Rebecca Johnson | Young People's Experience of Mental Illness Stigma and Discrimination

Session 2 - Time: 13:56

Mental Illness Stigma literature is exponentially growing and there have been great strides in advancing the understanding of adult experience and measurement of mental illness stigma. Young people are often excluded from this research and little is known about how they experience mental illness stigma, as no current measure exists. My research will involve a scoping review to clarify a wide array of terminology utilised within the literature and a mixed methods approach to understand young people's experience of mental illness stigma to inform the design of a measure to capture this. I will also be utilising participatory methods.

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Silvia Fraga Dominguez | A description of elder abuse cases reported to a UK helpline.

Session 2 - Time: 14:02

The abuse of older adults by someone in a position of trust, known as elder abuse, has major psychological, physical, and financial consequences. In the UK, the most recent elder abuse prevalence study was conducted in 2007. To update knowledge on the subject, I accessed every case reported to a major elder abuse UK helpline between 2017 and 2018. From the descriptions of the 1623 cases that met inclusion criteria, I extracted several case characteristics, such as abuse type or victim-perpetrator relationship. I will describe the sample’s main characteristics and explain the implications for future research.