Steps to Peace: Integrating Mindfulness, Relationship and Technique
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Steps to a Peace of Mind: Integrating Mindfulness, Therapeutic Relationship and Technique. Innovations in Practice in the Treatment of Eating Disorders.
IRAS ID
245662
Contact name
David Bishop
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bedfordshire, Institute of Applied Social Research
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 7 months, 13 days
Research summary
Steps to a Peace of Mind: Integrating mindful awareness, therapeutic relationship and technique. Exploring innovations in practice in the treatment of eating disorders.\n\nDespite the best current evidence-based practice, outcomes for people with eating disorders remain far from optimal. Between one half and one third of people do not fully recover and anorexia nervosa holds the highest mortality of any psychiatric disorder. \n\nHow might outcomes be enhanced?\n\nI work as a psychotherapist in an NHS Adult Eating Disorder Service. I am undertaking is a small, qualitative study of my own clinical practice, looking at innovative ways of working with people who have eating disorders and related mental health problems. \n\nOver recent years, I have been exploring different interventions such as mindfulness, mindful inquiry, (based on a self-help tool called The Work,) and a form of guided visualisation (based upon a process called The Journey Method). What is common to these techniques is the development of more mindful ways of being and working (both in the therapist and the client). This is very different to working at a cognitive, analytic or behavioural level. \n\nHaving incorporated these new ways of working, audit of my practice suggests that outcomes have significantly improved, with 60-90% (depending on chronicity of illness) of patients discharged clinically well.\n\nI would like to explore what may be making a difference. \n\nThe type of research I am doing is called relational ethnography, a form of autoethnography. This is a way of researching that will involve both describing and analysing experiences of change from within the therapeutic relationship. I would like to invite between three and five research participants from my clinical caseload to collaborate in the development of a rich, coherent, and analytical narrative account of new ways of working that have not previously been described in the field. \n
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0333
Date of REC Opinion
10 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion