PhD programme
The Mental Health Research Unit currently supports three PhDs
Corinne Gale
An exploration of self-compassion in eating disorders
The aim of this PhD is to use both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore experiences of self-compassion and investigate the effectiveness of Compassion Focused Therapy for people with eating disorders.
The first study will qualitatively explore experiences of compassion in childhood and current experiences of self-compassion in people with eating disorders.
The second will benchmark the outcomes of an eating disorder service using some techniques of Compassion Focused Therapy against the outcomes of standard eating disorder services.
The third study will evaluate the effectiveness of Compassion Focused Therapy for people with eating disorders. The fourth study will qualitatively explore the participants' experiences of developing self-compassion and Compassion Focused Therapy.
Keith Wilshere
Do national guidelines help or hinder meeting patient needs in depression?
This PhD research explores the relationship, tensions and contrasts between patient perceived needs and preferences, professional staff views and beliefs of best fit to meet needs, services actually provided/accessed and what the NICE National Guidelines indicate are the best practice evidenced interventions.
Behind this sits the 'Lean' Business driven hypothesis that the best fit between patient needs and service provision can only be achieved once those involved in providing the service have a good knowledge of the variety of need and demand along with patient perceptions and preferences. Therefore this work will also illustrate whether services are consistent with patient needs.
Kirsten McEwan
The aim of this PhD is to use quantitative methods to explore the processing of compassion in regard to levels of self-criticism. There is strong evidence that self-criticism is linked to a variety of psychopathologies. Compassion has been shown to be an antidote to self-criticism, however, high self-critics can be threatened by compassion, therefore it is important to explore how self-critics process and receive compassion.
Pilot studies exploring the processing off facial expressions displaying social acceptance and rejection were conducted. From these pilot studies it was concluded that a new facial stimulus set was needed to explore processing of compassionate emotions.
The first study developed a unique facial stimulus set displaying facial expressions of compassion, criticism and neutrality.
The second study explored the processing of these facial emotions was explored in low and high self-critics using a computerised cognitive task (visual probe task).
The third study explored the impact of compassionate and critical mental imagery on the processing of compassionate and critical facial emotions in low and high self-critics. This study used the same visual probe task used in study 2 but participants received either a compassionate or critical mental imagery task before completing the study measures.
