- University of East London, School of Psychology, Faculty Memberadd
- Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, Systems Theory, Psychopathology, Marriage & Family Therapy, Family Therapy, and 19 moreConstructivist Psychotherapy, Qualitative methodology, Narrative Therapy, Child and adolescent mental health, Mental Health, Discourse Analysis, Violence, Critical Psychology, Social Constructionism/ Constructivism, Systemic Therapy, Personal Construct Psychology, Intersubjectivity, Psychotherapy and Counseling, Eating Disorders, Counselling Psychology, Qualitative Research, Narrative, Adoption and Fostering, and Children and Familiesedit
ABSTRACT
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Aim: Our goal is to test the clinical hypothesis put forward by Ugazio (2013) that narrated stories of patients with phobic, obsessive–compulsive, eating and mood disorders, during therapeutic conversation, are dominated by the semantics... more
Aim: Our goal is to test the clinical hypothesis put forward by Ugazio (2013) that narrated stories of patients with phobic, obsessive–compulsive, eating and mood disorders, during therapeutic conversation, are dominated by the semantics of “freedom”, “goodness”, “power” and “belonging” respectively. Methods: To test this hypothesis we applied the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) coding system (Ugazio, Negri, Fellin, & Di Pasquale, 2009) to the transcripts of the first two sessions of 60 individual systemic therapies. Results: The hypothesis is confirmed by all the analysis. Moreover, the cluster analysis shows that the prevalent semantics pattern of 58 out of 60 patients assigns them to the right diagnostic group (Ugazio, Negri & Fellin, 2014). Discussion: As the results suggest, semantics can be a dimensional construct for a diagnosis oriented to the therapeutic change. Clinical implications for diagnostic and therapeutic processes will be addressed.
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Phenomenological psychopathology focuses on the first-person experience of mental disorders. Although it is in principle descriptive, it also entails an explanatory dimension: single psychological symptoms are conceived as genetically... more
Phenomenological psychopathology focuses on the first-person experience of mental disorders. Although it is in principle descriptive, it also entails an explanatory dimension: single psychological symptoms are conceived as genetically arising from a holistic structure of personal experience, i.e., the patient's being-in-the-world – and of its dynamic unfolding over time. Yet both classical and current phenomenological approaches tend to identify the essential disorder or “trouble générateur” (Minkowski) of mental illness within the individual, thereby neglecting the relevance of the social context not only for the emergence of symptoms but also for their treatment. The work of Wolfgang Blankenburg on schizophrenia represents a noteworthy approach to overcome this individualistic tendency. He introduced the concept of “loss of common sense” as the structural core of schizophrenic experience and being-in-the-world and he considered the social and most importantly familial context ...
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L'articolo presenta i percorsi alternati, una strategia terapeutica sistemica per le anoressie e bulimie adolescenziali ideata da Ugazio (2010; 2013; 2019). Si tratta di un percorso terapeutico pianificato, articolato in quattro fasi,... more
L'articolo presenta i percorsi alternati, una strategia terapeutica sistemica per le anoressie e bulimie adolescenziali ideata da Ugazio (2010; 2013; 2019). Si tratta di un percorso terapeutico pianificato, articolato in quattro fasi, che alternano format familiari a sedute individuali con la paziente. Questo approccio si fonda sulla teoria delle polarità semantiche familiari (Ugazio, 1998; 2012; 2018), secondo cui nella conversazione di e con queste famiglie prevale la semantica del potere. Attraverso la discussione di un caso clinico mostriamo come questa strategia aiuti a superare i dilemmi, legati alle dinamiche di potere, così caratteristici delle psicoterapie con i disturbi alimentari e massimizzi l'alleanza terapeutica con la famiglia e soprattutto con la paziente.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Interpersonal Communication, Eating Disorders, Authorship Attribution, Intrapersonal Communication, and 14 morePsychopathology, Cognitive Dissonance, Medicine, Systemic Psychotherapy, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Causal explanation, Feeling, Panic Disorders, Triadic Thinking, Psychotherapist, FRONTIERS, Depression Psychology, Mechanisms of Therapeutic Change, and Frontiers in Psychology
Inspired by Ugazio’s model of family semantic polarities (Storie permesse, storie proibite. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1998; 2012; Semantic polarities and psychopathologies in the family: Permitted and forbidden stories. New York:... more
Inspired by Ugazio’s model of family semantic polarities (Storie permesse, storie proibite. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1998; 2012; Semantic polarities and psychopathologies in the family: Permitted and forbidden stories. New York: Routledge, 2013) and by Harre et al.’s positioning theory (Harre & Van Langenhove, Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action. Malden: Blackwell, 1999), this chapter explores Victoria and Alfonso’s conflicts and dilemmas through a semantic analysis.
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Are the semantics of “freedom”, “goodness”, “power” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and mood disorders? To verify this... more
Are the semantics of “freedom”, “goodness”, “power” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and mood disorders? To verify this hypothesis, put forward by Ugazio’s model of semantic polarities, the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) was applied to the transcripts of 120 individual video-recorded systemic therapy sessions, the first two sessions carried out with 60 patients with phobic (12), obsessive-compulsive(12), eating (12), and mood (12) disorders and asymptomatic patients (12) with existential problems who made up the comparison group. The results confirm the hypothesis. All but one patient were correctly assigned to their diagnostic group only by drawing on their narrated semantics. The semantics alone therefore seem capable of defining the correct diagnostic group to which each patient belongs. We suggest considering the semantics as contextual and cultural diagnostic dimensions, expressions of the bonds but also of the resources of people, and above all useful for a diagnosis aimed at fostering processes of transformation and change.
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Introduction: In this study we explore how the diagnostic category of mood disorders is constructed in two handbooks of Psychopathology as an example of the mainstream construction of psychopathology. Despite the increasing criticism and... more
Introduction: In this study we explore how the diagnostic category of mood disorders is constructed in two handbooks of Psychopathology as an example of the mainstream construction of psychopathology. Despite the increasing criticism and lack of evidence, the debunked chemical imbalance theory of the etiology of depression still dominates the professional and pop/folk understanding and interventions. Methods: We analysed the breadth of the inference field and the type of etiopathogenetic contents of the explanations of mood disorders using the "1to3" Coding System. Results: Our findings show that the dominant explanations draw almost exclusively onto monadic explanations, followed by limited dyadic ones. Intrapersonal etiopathogenetic contents prevailed, and biomedical explanations were dominant in both textbooks. Discussion: We critically discuss the underpinnings of these results and address the clinical implications of these biased representations, as well as potential alternative approaches to psychopathology.
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In a recent review of the literature on domestic violence and childhood (Callaghan, 2015) it has become clear that, in a literature that tends to presume a male perpetrator and female victim of DV, men are largely absent. Literature... more
In a recent review of the literature on domestic violence and childhood (Callaghan, 2015) it has become clear that, in a literature that tends to presume a male perpetrator and female victim of DV, men are largely absent. Literature focuses on damaged childhoods and deficient mothers, but the male perpetrator (most typically the father, or a father figure) is positioned as simply a violent object, with relatively little engagement with him as a conscious subject, and little theorisation of the continuing role of The Father in children’s lives, particularly in the lives of male children. In this paper, based on interviews with 100 children who have lived with domestic violence, as well as group based therapeutic work with young people, we explore how boys negotiate the complexities of positioning themselves as masculine subjects, within a context where masculinity itself is (re)produced as highly problematic. We draw on Messerchmidt’s (2000) concept of ‘masculinity challenges’ to explore how boys and young men work with fraught constructions of masculinities and masculine embodiment, in their recovery from the experience of domestic violence.
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Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies is a four nation European Commission funded project, focused on the experience of young people living with domestic abuse. The project explores how we might facilitate young people's... more
Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies is a four nation European Commission funded project, focused on the experience of young people living with domestic abuse. The project explores how we might facilitate young people's capacity for agency, resistance and resilience in situations of domestic violence. In this invited workshop, we presented the preliminary findings of the UK and Italian project partners (University of Northampton, Women's Aid, and Il Meridiano). 74 individual interviews with children and young people were analysed thematically, with key themes including: Escapism; Gestures of Defiance; Care-taking and Relationships; and Paradoxical Resilience. The implications of the findings in relation to European and Italian policy development around domestic abuse were discussed.
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UNARS (‘Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies: Young People Living with Domestic Violence’) is a two-year European project exploring the ways children and young people cope and manage in situations of domestic violence. The... more
UNARS (‘Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies: Young People Living with Domestic Violence’) is a two-year European project exploring the ways children and young people cope and manage in situations of domestic violence. The project is led by an academic team from the University of Northampton with partners in Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK. One of the key aspects of the project is the enablement of children’s ‘voices’: we think it is important that children’s experiences are heard. The exhibition presents photovoice collages, drawings and interview extracts that enable a better understanding of the way that children experience and live with domestic violence. The imagery the children have produced provides an insight into the many and varied creative and resourceful ways that children find to manage their emotions, embodied experiences and relational spaces. The work illustrates children as impacted by domestic violence, but also as active agents in their own lives, making...
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IntroductionIn the tradition of phenomenological psychiatry, schizophrenia is described as a disturbance of the minimal self, i.e. the most basic form of self-awareness. This disturbance of the minimal self at the individual level is... more
IntroductionIn the tradition of phenomenological psychiatry, schizophrenia is described as a disturbance of the minimal self, i.e. the most basic form of self-awareness. This disturbance of the minimal self at the individual level is assumed to precede the intersubjective disturbances such as boundary weakening. However, the role of intersubjective disturbances in the emergence and recovery of schizophrenic experience still remains an open question. This phenomenological study focuses on how encounters with others shape self-experience during from psychosis by analyzing this process from the perspective of cultural differences, which in current research is especially under-researched. While most phenomenological accounts are based on first person-accounts from Western, individualist cultures where the self is conceived and experienced as separate to others, the present study qualitatively investigates psychotic experiences of patients from Jaffna, Sri Lanka.MethodSemi-structured int...
Objectives: Dominant professional and academic discourses position children who have experienced domestic violence as passive observers of abuse, ‘wounded’ by the things they have seen (Overlien 2013). Challenging this representation of... more
Objectives: Dominant professional and academic discourses position children who have experienced domestic violence as passive observers of abuse, ‘wounded’ by the things they have seen (Overlien 2013). Challenging this representation of children, this paper explores how children represent embodied and spatial experience of violence, including a consideration of how children use their material experiences to produce resistant embodied agency. Method This paper is based on interviews with 107 children, in 4 European countries (Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK), focused on their experiences of coping and of maintaining a sense of agency, in families where domestic violence occurs. These interviews included use of photo-elicitation, free drawing, and guided drawing - including family drawing and spatial mapping (Bridger, 2013; Gabb and Singh, 2014), to facilitate young people’s expression of difficult to articulate experiences. The interviews were analysed using Denzin’s Interpretive Int...
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Objectives Children who experience domestic violence report complex and challenging relationships with their perpetrating parents. Academic literature and professional practice provides little guidance on supporting children who... more
Objectives Children who experience domestic violence report complex and challenging relationships with their perpetrating parents. Academic literature and professional practice provides little guidance on supporting children who experience domestic violence in working through the complexities of their relationships with the perpetrating parent. This paper is based on interviews with children where the main perpetrator of domestic violence was their father. It paper explores children’s often ambiguous relationships with their father, and suggests strategies to support children in working through these relationships. Method The project ‘Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies’ involved interviews with 107 (aged 8-18) children who had experienced domestic violence. Based on these interviews, a group based intervention was developed and piloted to support children. These group based interventions were evaluated using routine outcome measures and interviews with 21 children who ha...
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This chapter explores children’s experiences of domestic violence. Academic research on domestic violence tends to focus on children as damaged by domestic violence, with an extensive consideration of the negative impact on children’s... more
This chapter explores children’s experiences of domestic violence. Academic research on domestic violence tends to focus on children as damaged by domestic violence, with an extensive consideration of the negative impact on children’s mental health, social, interpersonal and educational outcomes. This literature establishes children living with domestic violence as a vulnerable group, in need of significant intervention and support. This construct of vulnerability extends into professional talk about children’s lives, with mental health, social work and domestic violence support professionals describing children as vulnerable, damaged, and needy - often inevitably so. In contrast, we argue that framing children as "vulnerable" functions to undermine an understanding of their located capacity for agency, and can render children voiceless in specific contexts. Gatekeeping practices intended to protect vulnerable children have an unintended consequence of preventing them from...
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In this article, we present an overview of literature that explores tattooed female bodies. Focusing particularly on literature on femininities and embodiment, we consider how tattooed women’s bodies are read culturally, and the... more
In this article, we present an overview of literature that explores tattooed female bodies. Focusing particularly on literature on femininities and embodiment, we consider how tattooed women’s bodies are read culturally, and the implications of this reading for our further understanding of the social construction of femininities. We explore how hegemonic notions of femininities and embodiment intersect in our cultural reading of women’s tattooed bodies. To conclude, we look at how femininities and embodiment are important in under- standing how femininity is constituted, how women experience their tattooed bodies differently, and what this means in terms of how the body is read culturally.
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This paper describes the key findings of a two year project focused on children's experiences of domestic violence. It draws on 107 interviews with children in Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK. The paper explores children's... more
This paper describes the key findings of a two year project focused on children's experiences of domestic violence. It draws on 107 interviews with children in Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK. The paper explores children's capacity to articulate their experiences, and highlights that they are not 'witnesses' to intimate partner violence, but experience it directly and make meaning of it, as members of a family affected by violence. I argue that children need to be recognised as direct victims of domestic violence and of coercive control.
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Research Interests: Psychology, DBT (Psychology), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Borderline Personality Disorder, Cancer Prevention, and 7 moreSpirituality & Counselling & Psychotherapy, CBT, DBT, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Practice Based Research, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Construction of NICE Guidelines
Research Interests: Sociology, Psychology, Emotion, Gender Studies, Sociology of Emotion, and 15 moreMasculinity Studies, Emotional Labour, Gender Equality, Masculinity, Emotion Regulation, Gender and Development, Constructions of femininity, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Constructions of masculinity, Military, Hegemonic Masculinity, Feelings, Femininity and Masculinity Studies, Phenomenology of Feelings, and Emotions Social Psychology
Increasing evidence supports the efficacy of body-oriented psychotherapy (BPT) for schizophrenia. Yet, so far no research has investigated outcome in relation to therapy process: Why and how BPT is effective. In this study, we... more
Increasing evidence supports the efficacy of body-oriented psychotherapy (BPT) for schizophrenia. Yet, so far no research has investigated outcome in relation to therapy process: Why and how BPT is effective. In this study, we qualitatively explore participants' experience of a manualized BPT for schizophrenia to shed light on the process of therapeutic change. We conducted in-depth interviews with 6 participants who completed a 10-week BPT group intervention. Interviews explored participants' experience of change and helpful aspects of therapy and were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. We identified six master themes across the interviews: (i) Being a whole: body-mind connection; (ii) Being agentic and being able; (iii) Being unique and worthy: Being accepted for who one is; (iv) Changing interactions: Engaging in authentic interpersonal contact; (v) Being part of a group: Feeling integrated; and (vi) Hope and investing in the future. We discuss the c...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Emotion, Domestic Violence, Child and adolescent mental health, Children and Families, and 11 moreChild Development, Emotion Regulation, Emotions, Intimate Partner Violence, Emotional Competence, Emotional Competences, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence, Psychology of Violence, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Emotions Social Psychology, and Children Witness Domestic Violence
Research Interests: Sociology, Psychology, Domestic Violence, Children and Families, Embodiment, and 10 moreTorture, Domestic Space, Subjectivity, Elaine Scarry, Language Culture and Communication, Child witnesses, Violence Against Women and Children, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence, Children Witness Domestic Violence, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Policy on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in England has undergone radical changes in the last 15 years, with far reaching implications for funding models, access to services and service delivery. Using corpus analysis... more
Policy on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in England has undergone radical changes in the last 15 years, with far reaching implications for funding models, access to services and service delivery. Using corpus analysis and critical discourse analysis, we explore how childhood, mental health and CAMHS are constituted in 15 policy documents, 9 pre-2010 and 6 post-2010. We trace how these constructions have changed over time and consider the practice implications of these changes. We identify how children’s distress is individualised, through medicalising discourses and shifting understandings of the relationship between socio-economic context and mental health. This is evidenced in a shift from seeing children’s mental health challenges as produced by social and economic inequities to a view that children’s mental health must be addressed early to prevent future socio-economic burden. We consider the implications of CAMHS policies for the relationship between child...
Research Interests: Child and adolescent mental health, Mental Health, Mental Health Policy, Health Policy, Adolescent, and 14 moreMultidisciplinary, England, Social Stigma, Humans, Child, Mental Disorders, Mental health services, DOI, Parity of Esteem, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Mental Health of Children and Young People, Child Health Services, Socioeconomic Factors, and Health Services Accessibility
This chapter draws on empirical and theoretical literature from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives, illustrated with examples from the authors’ research with child survivors of domestic abuse, to explore children’s corporeal... more
This chapter draws on empirical and theoretical literature from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives, illustrated with examples from the authors’ research with child survivors of domestic abuse, to explore children’s corporeal agency and use of space in situations of violence. There is a noticeable paucity of literature that explores how children cope, or their capacity for resilience and resistance in situations of domestic violence. Furthermore, while violence and abuse are perpetrated and experienced in ways that are embodied and spatial, research seldom explores how children and young people experience and manage living in violent situations in corporeal and spatial ways. This chapter highlights the need for future research to consider children’s capacity for agency and resilience, taking into account spatial and corporeal contexts and experiences of violence in order to balance problem-focused debates around children’s experiences of domestic abuse with a more resilience-focused lens. Findings illustrate children as capable and active agents, resourceful and inventive in their capacity to use, produce and construct physical, embodied and relational spaces for security, comfort and healing during and after living within violent and volatile contexts.
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Children's experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse. The project "Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies" (UNARS) addresses this... more
Children's experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse. The project "Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies" (UNARS) addresses this absence, through direct engagement with children. We present an analysis from interviews with 21 children in the United Kingdom (12 girls and 9 boys, aged 8-18 years), about their experiences of domestic violence and abuse, and their responses to this violence. These interviews were analyzed using interpretive interactionism. Three themes from this analysis are presented: (a) "Children's experiences of abusive control," which explores children's awareness of controlling behavior by the adult perpetrator, their experience of that control, and its impact on them; (b) "Constraint," which explores how children experience the constraint associated with coercive control in situations of domestic violence; and (c) "Children...
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This article explores how children see their relationships, particularly their sibling relationships, in families affected by domestic violence (DV) and how relationality emerges in their accounts as a resource to build an agentic sense... more
This article explores how children see their relationships, particularly their sibling relationships, in families affected by domestic violence (DV) and how relationality emerges in their accounts as a resource to build an agentic sense of self. The 'voice' of children is largely absent from the DV literature, which typically portrays them as passive, damaged and relationally incompetent. Children's own understandings of their relational worlds are often overlooked, and consequently, existing models of children's social interactions give inadequate accounts of their meaning-making-in-context. Drawn from a larger study of children's experiences of DV and abuse, this article uses two case studies of sibling relationships to explore young people's use of relational resources, for coping with violence in the home. The article explores how relationality and coping intertwine in young people's accounts and disrupts the taken-for-granted assumption that children...
Research Interests: Psychology, Domestic Violence, Children and Families, Political Science, Medicine, and 13 moreMultidisciplinary, Intimate Partner Violence, Humans, Child, Child Abuse, Female, Male, Siblings Relationships, Siblings, Family Relations, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence, Domestic Abuse, and Relational Resilience
Research Interests: Psychology, Gender Studies, Gender, Qualitative Health Research, Feminism, and 15 moreFistula, Nigeria, Feminist Research Methods, Ideologies of Motherhood, Marriage, Child marriage prevention, Motherhood, How to Change Mindset Away from Early Marriage, Child Marriage, Early Marriage, Forced Marriage and Domestic Violence, Forced Marriages, African Feminisms, Child Brides, and Constrained Articulation
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Research Interests: Psychology, Domestic Violence, Linguistics, Medicine, Intimate Partner Violence, and 8 moreViolence Against Women and Children, Public health systems and services research, Interpersonal Violence, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence, Domestic Abuse, Family and child studies, Springer, and Coercive Control
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Objectives: Dominant professional and academic discourses position children who have experienced domestic violence as passive observers of abuse, ‘wounded’ by the things they have seen (Øverlien 2013). Challenging this representation of... more
Objectives:
Dominant professional and academic discourses position children who have experienced domestic violence as passive observers of abuse, ‘wounded’ by the things they have seen (Øverlien 2013). Challenging this representation of children, this paper explores how children represent embodied and spatial experience of violence, including a consideration of how children use their material experiences to produce resistant embodied agency.
Method
This paper is based on interviews with 107 children, in 4 European countries (Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK), focused on their experiences of coping and of maintaining a sense of agency, in families where domestic violence occurs. These interviews included use of photo-elicitation, free drawing, and guided drawing - including family drawing and spatial mapping (Bridger, 2013; Gabb and Singh, 2014), to facilitate young people’s expression of difficult to articulate experiences. The interviews were analysed using Denzin’s Interpretive Interactionism.
Results:
Visual methods facilitated children’s critical reflections on their experiences of embodiment, and how they used spaces and places within and outside the violent home environment. Three themes are considered: children’s experiences of displacement and disruption (the un-homing of the home), their accounts of creating safe spaces within their home, and use of space as a form of escape and resistance to abuse and control.
Conclusions and Implications
Findings suggest that children are capable and active agents, resourceful and inventive in their capacity to use, produce and construct physical, embodied and relational spaces for security, comfort and healing during and after living within violent and volatile contexts. The practical applications of these findings are considered.
Dominant professional and academic discourses position children who have experienced domestic violence as passive observers of abuse, ‘wounded’ by the things they have seen (Øverlien 2013). Challenging this representation of children, this paper explores how children represent embodied and spatial experience of violence, including a consideration of how children use their material experiences to produce resistant embodied agency.
Method
This paper is based on interviews with 107 children, in 4 European countries (Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK), focused on their experiences of coping and of maintaining a sense of agency, in families where domestic violence occurs. These interviews included use of photo-elicitation, free drawing, and guided drawing - including family drawing and spatial mapping (Bridger, 2013; Gabb and Singh, 2014), to facilitate young people’s expression of difficult to articulate experiences. The interviews were analysed using Denzin’s Interpretive Interactionism.
Results:
Visual methods facilitated children’s critical reflections on their experiences of embodiment, and how they used spaces and places within and outside the violent home environment. Three themes are considered: children’s experiences of displacement and disruption (the un-homing of the home), their accounts of creating safe spaces within their home, and use of space as a form of escape and resistance to abuse and control.
Conclusions and Implications
Findings suggest that children are capable and active agents, resourceful and inventive in their capacity to use, produce and construct physical, embodied and relational spaces for security, comfort and healing during and after living within violent and volatile contexts. The practical applications of these findings are considered.
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Objective: There is a dearth of practice-based evidence of adapted or ‘DBT-informed’ transdiagnostic models, which could provide services and clinicians with information of what works and for whom, in which settings. This paper aims to... more
Objective: There is a dearth of practice-based evidence of adapted or ‘DBT-informed’ transdiagnostic models, which could provide services and clinicians with information of what works and for whom, in which settings. This paper aims to bridge this gap by exploring the client experience of a 12-week transdiagnostic dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) group programme in a private psychiatric hospital. Method: Five participants with varied clinical diagnoses and previous therapeutic experiences were interviewed following completion of one or more of the same adapted DBT programme, comprising of the standard four modules over 12 weeks, including a weekly skills group and 1:1 therapy. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was applied to give voice to the clients’ lived experience of the group. Results: Three master themes were identified: ‘Pre DBT: Crisis & Desperation’; ‘In-session: Belonging’; and ‘The Real World: Living’, each characterised by 4 sub-themes, highlighting helpful and hindering factors of clients’ current and previous therapeutic experiences. Conclusion: Overall this version of DBT in a transdiagnostic setting was experienced as helpful and positive by participants; main outcomes included being able to build a life worth living, feel hope and joy, build DBT skills into a lifestyle, and develop reflective practice. Implications for clinical practice, service delivery and policy are also discussed. The article aims to provide clinicians with practice-based evidence to inform the delivery of DBT as well as supporting the case for the use of DBT with various disorders, thus paving the way for future research in this area.