Formulation
Formulation as a living, shared understanding
A good formulation draws on more than one professional view, is shared rather than filed away, and keeps changing as understanding of a person's life grows.
Programmes · Research
Research
Articles from the Society on psychology, psychiatry and mental-health research. Clinical claims carry a source and a date.
Formulation
What formulation means in mental health care
Formulation is the working, collaborative explanation of why a difficulty developed for one particular person, built together and always open to revision.
History and theory
The move from institutions towards community-based care
A wider model, a long move away from large institutions and a changed idea of recovery reshaped mental health care across the twentieth century's second half.
History and theory
How the asylum era changed ideas about care
In the nineteenth century a conviction that distress deserved order and kindness rather than restraint reshaped care, and later gave way to competing theories of mind.
Workforce wellbeing
The place of supervision in mental health work
Supervision sets aside protected time to reflect on demanding work with a colleague, rather than carrying it alone, and it sits alongside informal peer support.
Workforce wellbeing
Looking after the people who look after others
Mental health work asks people to sit closely with other people's distress for a living, and how sustainable that becomes depends on the systems around them.
Assessment
Assessment, diagnosis and the space between them
Assessment gathers the evidence and diagnosis gives part of it a shared name; the two do different jobs, and neither one replaces the other.
Assessment
What happens in a mental health assessment
An assessment is best understood as a structured, careful conversation that builds a shared picture between a clinician and the person in front of them.
Lived experience
The value of talking about mental health
Putting a difficult experience into words, to a clinician, a friend or someone who has been through something similar, is among the oldest tools in mental health care.
Lived experience
Why lived experience belongs in mental health care
People who have lived with mental illness bring knowledge that clinical training alone cannot provide, and increasingly they help shape the care others receive.
Community psychiatry
Why housing, work and relationships matter to recovery
Clinical treatment is only part of recovery from mental illness; stable housing, meaningful activity and steady relationships often matter just as much.
Community psychiatry
How community mental health teams work
Most ongoing mental health care now happens close to home, delivered by teams that bring different professions together around a person's whole life.
Neuroscience
How brain cells talk to each other
Neurons pass signals across tiny gaps called synapses, and much of what mental illness changes, and much of what treatment changes, happens at that junction.
Neuroscience
How researchers picture the brain
Brain imaging lets researchers see the brain's structure and its activity, but a picture of the brain is where questions start, not where a diagnosis ends.
Psychosis
Recognising the early signs of psychosis
The early signs of psychosis are often subtle and easy to miss, but recognising them and seeking support sooner tends to make everything that follows easier.
Psychosis
What psychosis is, and what changes
Psychosis is a general medical term for a change in how a person experiences reality, and understanding it clearly is more useful than fearing the word. What the word covers "Psychosis" is not a diagnosis in itself.
Formulation
DESIGN CHECK (test, delete): How a formulation is built
DESIGN CHECK (test, delete). A worked example of the article shape: a standfirst, an evidence rating, two subheadings, one picture and the field it belongs to. A formulation is a shared account of why a person is struggling now.
