For detailed listings of major projects within this programme, please click here.
The Programme focuses on psychiatric conditions that give rise to great suffering, that place a heavy burden on NHS resources, and that urgently need more informed and effective management. Examples are personality disorder (including forensic and severe PD) and self-harm, each emphasized in the NSF, and lifespan developmental disorders such as autism. We shall (a) capitalize on recent methodological advances in assessing interpersonal relations in these refractory conditions, to investigate neglected aspects of psychopathology central to prevention and treatment, and (b) demonstrate mechanisms by which inter-generational transmission of disturbance from parents to infants may take place.
Publications 2000/1: 16
External funding
1999/2000 = £352,000;
2000/2001 = £250,000,
2001/2002 = £344,000
The programme co-ordinates novel scientific approaches to elucidate those severe and often lifelong psychiatric conditions that strongly implicate dysfunctional relationships in their pathogenesis and/or natural history. From a complementary perspective, the conditions illustrate how relationships cause and shape disorders and their resistance to treatment. The research areas are:
(i) Sources of relationship difficulties in parent-infant relations
We shall develop and elaborate our studies of mother-infant relations where either the mother has defined psychiatric morbidity (eating disorders, depression, and borderline personality disorder) or the infant has defined disability (especially, autism or mental retardation). Our strategy is to compare matched groups of participants on a variety of measures that highlight specific forms of psychopathology in relationships, and trace the implications for the infants' development.
This research receives substantial external funding, including current grants from the ESRC (Prof Hobson) and the Wellcome Foundation (Prof Stein), and programmatic funding from the Hayward Foundation, the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust, the Tedworth Trust and the Glass House Trust. Work in this domain has resulted in many publications in high-quality journals over the past five years, as detailed in previous Annual Reports.
(ii) The assessment of relationships and 'mental representations' of relationships in adults with psychiatric disorder.
The focus is upon the patterns of relationship in individuals who have serious psychological disorder, especially adults with borderline personality disorder, mentally disordered offenders, and adolescents who self-harm or who have suicidal risk. We shall apply already-validated measures (eg the Adult Attachment Interview) with new measures developed in the Programme (eg the Personal Relatedness Profile) to matched groups of psychiatrically defined patients. Thereby we shall achieve scientific evaluation of aspects of psychological functioning that usually escape the net of conventional study - and which are critical for understanding and planning the psychotherapeutic management of these disorders.
These studies have received Charitable funding , and include international collaboration (with Yale University) and PhD and other trainee projects.
(iii) The appraisal of developmental disorders in children and adolescents
This continues our increasingly influential research into the disorders of interpersonal relations that characterize young children with autism and congenital blindness. Over the past decade our methods and findings have prompted changes in how these conditions are conceptualised and managed. Our techniques include novel experimental approaches and systematic observational studies of the children, and controlled interview studies with parents. We involve both patients and carers.
This area of research is currently receiving support from Charities such as Remedi, the Hayward Foundation and the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust.
All three areas require Priorities and Needs funding to complement SfS support and the external funding from Charities, particularly to support the PhD and training projects associated with the Programme and the work on clinical applications.
It should be noted that, with Prof. Stein's change to part-time involvement in the Tavistock-based part of his research, we are about to appoint a new Professor in the Child and Family Department, and we anticipate that the work of the person appointed will both re-shape and strengthen this Programme.
Future developments in 2002/3
