Research watch: trauma-informed mental health care and avoiding exclusion of people with a psychosis diagnosis from trauma therapies

Research watch: trauma-informed mental health care and avoiding exclusion of people with a psychosis diagnosis from trauma therapies Sue Holttum Mental Health and Social Inclusion, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp.109-116 This paper aims to highlight emerging research relating to the need to recognise and address trauma in mental health service users. The author searched for papers on trauma-informed care, published in the past two years. One paper reports ideas of service users and family members for trauma-informed mental health services. A second paper describes an online survey seeking agreement between staff and service users of early intervention services for psychosis about practices of trauma-informed care. Both papers feature themes about safety and staff having training and support for asking about and responding to trauma. A third paper reports on specific therapies for trauma with people who experience psychosis. It found some evidence for talking therapies but noted that people with a psychosis diagnosis are rarely offered such therapies. These papers highlight an emerging consensus about essential components of trauma-informed care and the need for staff training and support to realise it. The exclusion of people with a psychosis diagnosis from specific trauma therapies might begin to be addressed if services were more able to recognise trauma. There is some evidence that talking therapies for childhood trauma can be helpful for peop...
Source: Mental Health and Social Inclusion - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research