Using CBT interpersonal team formulation on mental health inpatient wards.

OBJECTIVES: Team formulation involves a multidisciplinary team coming together to understand the factors leading to the development and maintenance of a patient's problems and the implications of this for future care planning. METHOD: This paper presents a case example describing this approach in an acute inpatient setting. RESULTS: "William" was a 59-year-old male with longstanding mental health difficulties. During his admission, he presented as verbally abusive, intrusive, and sexually inappropriate. He was also controlling and intimidating toward other patients. Staff were becoming frustrated and hopeless about managing William on the ward leading them to adopt inconsistent approaches in relating to him. A team formulation was developed to understand William's trauma history and how this impacted on his beliefs about himself and other people as well as his way of relating to others. CONCLUSIONS: The team formulation helped staff to develop consistent care plans in relation to William's presentation on the ward and more empathy in relation to behaviors that they found challenging.

Overcoming challenges in delivering integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural therapy for bipolar disorder with co-morbid alcohol use: therapist perspectives.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol misuse is common in bipolar disorder and is associated with worse outcomes. A recent study evaluated integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural therapy for bipolar disorder and alcohol misuse with promising results in terms of the feasibility of delivering the therapy and the acceptability to participants. AIMS: Here we present the experiences of the therapists and supervisors from the trial to identify the key challenges in working with this client group and how these might be overcome. METHOD: Four therapists and two supervisors participated in a focus group. Topic guides for the group were informed by a summary of challenges and obstacles that each therapist had completed at the end of therapy for each individual client. The audio recording of the focus group was transcribed and data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: We identified five themes: addressing alcohol use versus other problems; impact of bipolar disorder on therapy; importance of avoidance and overcoming it; fine balance in relation to shame and normalising use; and 'talking the talk' versus 'walking the walk'. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that clients may be willing to explore motivations for using alcohol even if they are not ready to change their drinking, and they may want help with a range of mental health problems. Emotional and behavioural avoidance may be a key factor in maintaining alcohol use in this client group and therapists should be aware of a possible discrepancy between clients' intentions to reduce misuse and their actual behaviour.

Feasibility and acceptability of integrated psychological therapy versus treatment as usual for people with bipolar disorder and co-morbid alcohol use: A single blind randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use is a common problem in bipolar disorder (BD) and evidence indicates more promising outcomes for alcohol use than other substances. No trials have evaluated individual integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy (MI-CBT) for problematic alcohol use in BD. We therefore assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a novel MI-CBT intervention for alcohol use in BD. METHODS: A single blind RCT was conducted to compare MI-CBT plus treatment as usual (TAU) with TAU only. MI-CBT was delivered over 20 sessions with participants followed up at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months post-randomisation. Primary outcomes were the feasibility and acceptability of MI-CBT (recruitment to target, retention to follow-up and therapy, acceptability of therapy and absence of adverse events). We also conducted preliminary analyses of alcohol and mood outcomes (frequency and severity of alcohol use and time to mood relapse). RESULTS: 44 participants were recruited with 75% retention to 6 and 12 months follow-up. Therapy participants attended a mean of 17.6 (SD 4.5) sessions. Therapy alliance and treatment fidelity were acceptable. Qualitative interviews indicated the intervention was experienced as collaborative, and helpful, in addressing mood and alcohol issues, although risk of overconfidence following therapy was also identified. Clinical outcomes did not differ between arms at 12 months follow-up. LIMITATIONS: As a feasibility and acceptability trial any secondary results should be treated with caution. CONCLUSIONS: Integrated MI-CBT is feasible and acceptable, but lack of clinical impact, albeit in a feasibility study, suggests need for further development. Potential adaptations are discussed.

Therapist-client relationships in a psychological therapy trial for psychosis and substance misuse.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to explore factors associated with outcomes in a randomised controlled trial of integrated motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis and substance misuse. METHOD: Clients and therapists completed self-report measures of alliance and clients completed a self-report measure of adult attachment. Trial therapists were also asked to identify challenges in therapy, client strengths and reasons for client making and not making changes in relation to substance misuse. RESULTS: Neither therapist-rated nor client-rated alliance was significantly related to objective outcomes. Client insecure attachment avoidance was associated with poorer symptoms and functioning at 12 and 24 months; although not changes in substance misuse. Therapists' perceptions of therapeutic processes (e.g., challenges to therapy, client strengths, client reasons for change and alliance) were consistent with previous literature. Therapists' perceptions of client improvement were associated with reductions in substance use at the end of treatment and their ratings of therapeutic alliance. CONCLUSION: Insecure adult attachment styles may be a potentially important predictor of symptom outcomes for people with psychosis and substance misuse. Trial therapists may also provide an important source of information about therapeutic processes and factors associated with outcome.