Division of Mental Health Nursing and Counselling

The Tayside Centre for Counselling is a live project which runs a research clinic for community clients and gathers data to explore and evidence the effectiveness of Pluralistic Framework for Counselling and Psychotherapy.  It has allowed Abertay to form a consortium of similar clinics across the UK aiming to collaborate on large-scale research projects examining the process and outcomes of therapy.  The clinic also provides a number of post-graduate students with opportunities for practice placement.

Our research centres on the reporting of Cause for concern in healthcare settings, the evaluation and management of risk in mental health contexts, and the disparity between management of self-harm and the experiences of those who experience self-harming behaviour, and the use and effectiveness of interventions for people living with dementia.  External collaborations include those with NHS Fife on the skills and training required for helping people living with Borderline Personality Disorder, and the creation of a recovery assessment tool for use by service-users, the Individual Recovery Outcomes Counter (I.ROC) with Penumbra

Our research approach has focussed on the use of advanced qualitative methodologies such as auto-ethnography and the Quasi-judicial and Ward Method of complex case-study data.  We are also collectively engaged in a number of systematic reviews of Mental Health Nursing practice to provide a landscape of the current evidence base for the profession.