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The relevance of professionals’ attachment style, expectations and job attitudes for therapeutic relationships with young people who experience psychosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

C. Berry  and
K. Greenwood
C. Berry*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, UK
K. Greenwood
Affiliation:
University of Sussex and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, UK
*
*Corresponding author. School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK. Tel.: +44 1273 265896. E-mail address:c.berry@sussex.ac.uk(C. Berry).
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Abstract

Background

Therapeutic relationships are a central component of community treatment for psychosis and thought to influence clinical and social outcomes, yet there is limited research regarding the potential influence of professional characteristics on positive therapeutic relationships in community care. It was hypothesised that professionals’ relating style and attitudes toward their work might be important, and thus this exploratory study modelled associations between these characteristics and therapeutic relationships developed in community psychosis treatment.

Methods

Dyads of professionals and young patients with psychosis rated their therapeutic relationships with each other. Professionals also completed measures of attachment style, therapeutic optimism, outcome expectancy, and job attitudes regarding working with psychosis.

Results

Professionals’ anxious attachment predicted less positive professional therapeutic relationship ratings. In exploratory directed path analysis, data also supported indirect effects, whereby anxious professional attachment predicts less positive therapeutic relationships through reduced professional therapeutic optimism and less positive job attitudes.

Conclusions

Professional anxious attachment style is directly associated with the therapeutic relationship in psychosis, and indirectly associated through therapeutic optimism and job attitudes. Thus, intervening in professional characteristics could offer an opportunity to limit the impact of insecure attachment on therapeutic relationships in psychosis.

Keywords

Schizophrenia and psychosisSocial and cross-cultural psychiatryPsychometry and assessments in psychiatryPsychotherapyQuality of care
Type
Original article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 34 , April 2016 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatry 2016

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