Personality Disorder (Practice Development) MSc / PgDip

The Personality Disorder programmes aim to shed light on this complex area of practice for the mental health professional. Increasingly on the agenda since national policy developments such as ‘Personality Disorder: No Longer a Diagnosis of Exclusion’ (DoH, 2003), the impetus to acknowledge personality disorder as a mainstream mental health activity continued with NICE guidelines in 2009. Such guidance outlined the development of services for individuals with personality disorder in all settings, including primary and secondary care, and recognised the importance of increasing specialist knowledge and staff development. Recent innovations such as the Power, Meaning Threat framework (Johnstone et al, 2018), the Consensus statement: People with complex mental health difficulties who are diagnosed with a Personality Disorder (MIND, RCN, BPS et al, 2018), reinforce this, and the need to take a formulation based approach to care delivery. The Personality Disorder programmes are innovative courses, which provide students with an opportunity to enhance their understanding and practice within the area of personality disorder. Beyond this, they also aim to develop practitioners who can function at an advanced level and provide leadership and direct service development and planning for contemporary practice. You will also gain PGDip award in this course.

The course attempts to discuss the key themes in current thinking around personality disorder, including the following themes:

• Classification and nosology
• Models and theories of personality disorder
• Ideological, ethical, and philosophical issues
• Assessment processes
• Risk assessment and management
• Team working and communication
• Therapeutic environments and interventions
• Critiquing research
• Service development and design