Research and publications

Please note: the resources and publications featured here are not considered an exhaustive list, so please contact us if there are other projects that should be added, or if you are conducting research into the PTMF and would like your details included.

Research

Potential research/evaluation ideas

The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a major Division of Clinical Psychology-funded project to outline a conceptual alternative to the diagnostic model of psychological and emotional distress. 

The documents present a set of principles, and the DCP Power Threat Meaning Framework Subcommittee has been set up to collate examples of these principles being translated into practice.

The Committee also aims to support research and evaluation into all aspects of the Framework, so that they can feed back into its further development.

Potential research/evaluation ideas for students, trainees and researchers

 

Ongoing projects

Beth Stubbs: Canterbury University

In what ways do members of the public relate to the Power Threat Meaning Framework when creating personal narratives of a distressing life experience?

This project aims to explore how members of the public relate to elements from the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) as they tell their story of a distressing life experience, and their experience of doing so.

Participants will attend two 1:1 interviews with the lead researcher.

At the first interview, they will be invited to tell their story of a distressing life experience, and the lead researcher will explore how they might relate this to elements of the PTMF, such as power and threat.

At the second interview, participants will be invited to reflect upon and describe their experience of telling a personal story in this way. Stories will be analysed using narrative analysis.

Contact: [email protected]

Milly Attwood (Trainee Clinical Psychologist)

DClinPsy research project at Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology

Project titled "Service user narratives of the development of collaborative formulations in EMDR for psychosis".

The project is interested in understanding whether there is an imposition of narratives on service users when they are developing formulations with their EMDR therapist and is aligned with the Power Threat Meaning Framework.

Iryna Belcher

MSc Forensic psychology and mental health course student

Research project involving PTMF.

The study title: Exploring Forensic Psychology students' awareness about alternative perspectives on mental health diagnosis in working with offenders.

Contact: [email protected]
 

Emma Johnson

DClinPsy research

Emma Johnson is conducting her DClinPsy research on how the PTMF is being  used in adult mental health settings  using Grounded Theory.

Clinical Psychologist participants using the PTMF as part of their work in UK adult mental health services are invited to discuss their expereinces as part of the research.

Participation would involvce attending 90 minute interviews or focus group (in person or online) conducted by Emma. 

Email: [email protected]

Stian Olsson

Psychosocial Health Practitioner (Lindesnes Kommune, Norway)

Professor Tore Dag Bøe and his colleague Odd Kenneth Hillesund have been leading a PTMF-group of practitioners in Agder (southern part of Norway), who are trying out the Framework.

They are supervising Stian who is undertaking a Masters thesis titled: "How does practitioners and clients experience conversations based on the Power Threat Meaning Framework?".

The thesis is phenomenological-hermeneutical using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke).

Practitoners and clients after 3 conversations will be interviewed.

Stian can be contacted at [email protected].

Expected completion June 2024. 

Morgan, James & Dudley-Hick

University of Leicester

Using the Power Threat Meaning Framework to make sense of experiences parenting a child diagnosed with a learning disability: An exploration of fit and utility

  • Research suggests that parents of children diagnosed with a learning disability (LD) experience higher levels of distress and are sometimes viewed by professionals as problematic or 'lacking resilience'.
  • However, less attention has been paid to the distress parents experience as a result of the barriers they face from wider society and the way services are organised.
  • The Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) is a way of helping people create more self-compassionate ways of understanding their experiences of distress (or suffering).
  • It was introduced as an alternative to psychiatric diagnoses and attempts to move away from asking "what is wrong with you?", to "What has happened to you?"
  • The Framework has been useful for different groups of people, but had not previously been explored with parents of children diagnosed with an LD.

Read more about using the PTMF when parenting a child with a learning disability.

Dan Warrender

Royal Gordon University - Aberdeen

Dan's PhD topic is 'borderline personality disorder'.

The PTMF is being used in this thesis. Research articles use PTMF where the validity of the 'BPD' construct is challenged.

Dan can be contacted at [email protected].

Michelle Glascott

Northumbria University

Michelle Glascott (Northumbria University) and colleagues are looking to critically investigate a co-production approach to care organisation and provision (ReCoCo- Tyneside Recovery College; an entirely peer-led recovery college) alongside an evaluation of the efficacy of the PTMF as a means of understanding distress, as experienced by the students attending ReCoCo.

Michelle can be contacted at [email protected].

Nour Hadadj 

University of Leicester

Nour Hadadj (University of Leicester) is using the PTMF in her research into the effects of trauma and adversity on women refugee's ability to self-organise.

Nour can be contacted on [email protected].

Siobhan Beckwith

University of Huddersfield

Siobhan's doctoral research project is about mothers living apart from their children, exploring their mental health in the context of power, following removal of their children from their care by the state.

Drawing on the Power Threat Meaning Framework this study aims to locate participants' narratives within the social, cultural, and political contexts of their everyday lives.

Siobhan can be contacted at [email protected]

Rachael Stabler

University of Edinburgh

Doctorate of Clinical Psychology Thesis (expected Autumn 2023) - Power, Threat, Meaning and Repeated Self-Harm: A Qualitative Multi-Perspective Exploration of Service Responses.

Rachael can be contacted at: [email protected]

Dilara Omur

University of East London

How is the Power Threat Meaning Framework being used by Clinical Psychologists in Clinical Practice?   

Qualitative study exploring the different ways in which qualified Clinical Psychologists are using or drawing on the PTMF in their clinical work, and the factors that might be facilitating or hindering the frameworks use.  

The project is currently recruiting participants.

Interviews would take place online via MS Teams, you would not need to have an MS Teams account.

f you would be interested in discussing your experience, or would like more information, please contact Dilara at [email protected].

 Lauren McGregor and Georgie Ramsay

University of Leicester

 Lauren McGregor and Georgie Ramsay are exploring the utility and fit of the PTMF for making sense of climate distress amongst activists.

Completed papers

View a list of completed research papers

Articles

The January 2019 issue of Clinical Psychology Forum was a special edition, focusing on applied uses of the Power Threat Meaning Framework within human services and beyond.

It also includes an update from the project team one year on from publication of the original PTMF document. The reports on applied uses show that the framework can be highly effective and useful for many people, both in help-providing and help-seeking roles.

Blogs

Podcasts and videos

Covid-19

Chapters

Books

  • Boyle, M. & Johnstone, L. (2020). A straight talking introduction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework. PCCS

    This introduction to the PTM Framework explains why a non-diagnostic approach is needed and presents the ideas and evidence behind the Framework in an accessible way. Readers are guided in using the Framework for themselves or with people they're working with or supporting. They are also encouraged to question some taken for granted assumptions about ourselves and the world. The book provides many additional resources for those who want to follow up the ideas, practices and sources of support for alternatives to diagnosis and medicalisation.
     
  • Cromby, H., Harper, D., Johnstone, L., and Reavey, L.  (2013). Psychology, mental health and distress. London, Bloomsbury.(2nd edition due in 2025).
     
  • Fisher, N. (2024). The Psychology of Mental Health, Oxford, OUP.
     
  • Goodman, B.  (2019). Psychology and Sociology in Nursing. 3rd edition, London: Sage.
     
  • Grant, A & Goodman, G. (2018). Communication and interpersonal skills in Nursing. 4th edn London: Sage.
     
  • Liao, L-M. (2023) Variations in Sex Development: Medicine, Culture and Psychological Practice. Cambridge University Press

    In this book Lih-Mei Liao (former Head of Women's Health Psychological Services at UCL Hospitals and Hon. Reader, UCL Institute for Women's Health) situates the dilemmas facing people impacted by innate variations in sex characteristics, also known as intersex, in their cultural context. Almost without exception, service users experience medical interventions to approximate social norms for bodily appearance and function, as their individual choice. Likewise, medical practitioners tend to understand themselves as providing neutral and unbiased counsel on their interventions.

    Dr Liao draws on the PTM Framework to encourage professional and peer providers to identify and highlight negative operations of power in intersex medicine and the role of cultural messages in common meanings encountered in these settings. She provides clinical vignettes to suggest that the initial meaning given to a threatening experience need not be the last word on the subject or a mandate for medical 'normalisation'.
     
  • Raskin, J (2024). Psychopathology and mental distress: Contrasting perspectives. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.