Fully Funded PhD Studentship: Assessing the Validity, Utility and Value of Individual Case Formulation within the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway

Swansea University is a UK top 30 institution for research excellence (Research Excellence Framework 2014), and has been named Welsh University of the Year 2017 by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide. Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in Psychology, funded by Swansea University and the Offender Personality Disorder Programme.

Description

The Offender Personality Disorder Pathway (OPDP) is a specialist service created through a partnership between the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice. It is designed to facilitate workforce development and to reduce risk and increase wellbeing of those individuals within the Criminal Justice System who are identified as being at the highest risk of harm, and who are also likely to have a personality disorder.

Case formulation is a core element of psychotherapeutic interventions and clinical psychology practice, and has been included as a major component of the (OPDP) consultation service. However, despite the centrality of formulation to the above and the major investment of time and resource into this activity, the evidence base for formulation remains very limited.

Research aims

This research is intended to examine the quality, validity, utility and (cost) effectiveness of the formulation component of the OPDP as applied by specialists and psychologists for high risk offenders within the criminal justice system. Key questions to be addressed by this research include:

1. Does the formulation provide an understanding of the individual’s likely behaviour within their offender supervision sessions that could lead to different ways of intervening / working with the person during their supervision contact?

2. Does the formulation provide case specific (idiographic) information to improve the quality / productivity of these meetings (and wider treatment planning) over and above a nomothetic formulation?

3. Does an intra-individual formulation system (which takes into account states – internal and external – and situations/contexts specific to that person) provide incremental prediction / validity in comparison to a nomothetic prediction system?

4. Is the quality of raw material sufficient to construct a case formulation (ie is the ’done about’ rather than ’done with’ approach a valid one)?

This work will build upon idiographic and nomothetic methods being developed by members of the research supervision team and will necessitate the development of new and novel methods that can be employed in routine practice. The findings from this research would be of widespread interest (in forensic and therapeutic settings) and as such is likely to have significant impact.

Supervisors

Primary – Professor Jason Davies (http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/human-and-health-sciences/psychology/j.davies/)

Secondary – Dr Ruth Horry (http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/human-and-health-sciences/psychology/r.horry/)

Partner – Dr Greg Mumma; Texas Tech University

Additional supervisors – Professor Deb Fitzsimmons (http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/human-and-health-sciences/allstaff/d.fitzsimmons/); Professor Peter Raynor (http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/law/peterraynor/)

Facilities

Postgraduate Research (PGR) students in the College of Human and Health Sciences are provided with a desk and PC in dedicated PGR areas.
The library and IT services at Swansea University are excellent and the College has a dedicated librarian who is able to assist PGR students on a one-to-one basis.
The College is also able to offer each PGR student expenses up to a maximum of £1000 to support their research.
We provide training in research methods via access to research methods modules and training courses run within the College, in addition to the comprehensive PGR skills training programme offered by the University.
PGR students within the College benefit from participation in a range of seminars and events to develop their confidence and skills and enhance the visibility of their work.
Specific to this project; the student will be linked to researchers working within the National Offender Management Service and other forensic / criminal justice settings.
Eligibility

Applications are invited from exceptional candidates with an academic background in Psychology. It is expected that the successful candidate will have a first class honours degree, and/or appropriate Master’s degree.

Applicants with experience in the following are encouraged to apply:

Quantitative and qualitative research methods including single case experimental design
Familiarity with case formulation
Working within a criminal justice setting
Due to funding restrictions, this studentship is open to UK/EU students only.