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Background: Youth violence and knife crime is increasing dramatically, so much so it has been described as a global epidemic. The social, economic and political forces fuelling this rise mean that minority groups are particularly affected. Aim: This paper reviews the literature primarily from a UK perspective, and illustrates the disparate factors that are influencing the rise in youth violence and knife crime and illustrates the complexities of integrating the perspectives of different disciplines into coherent intervention strategies. Method: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that explores both the causes of increasing youth violence and knife crime as well as some of the interventions that have attempted to deal with the problem. Results: A complex interplay of social, economic, mental health and political factors underpin the increase in youth violence and knife crime. An uneasy tension exists between a traditional criminal justice system-based approach based upon deterrence and punishment, and a more liberal preventative model focusing on adolescent mental health. None of the interventions thus far have been particularly effective. Conclusion: Youth violence and knife crime is a global social issue that causes untold suffering to individuals, families and communities as well as fear that reverberates through society. Interventions have often been devised through the lens of particular disciplines or ideologies. Integrating these perspectives into a coherent approach that is actually effective demands greater co-operation, dialogue and mutual understanding between disciplines and agencies, as well as a robust framework for the evidence-based assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Patients with a combination of long-term physical health problems can face barriers in obtaining appropriate treatment for co-existing mental health problems. This paper evaluates the impact of integrating the improving access to psychological therapies services (IAPT) model with services addressing physical health problems. We ask whether such services can reduce secondary health care utilization costs and improve the employment prospects of those so affected. Methods: We used a stepped-wedge design of two cohorts of a total of 1,096 patients with depression and/or anxiety and comorbid long-term physical health conditions from three counties within the Thames Valley from March to August 2017. Panels were balanced. Difference-in-difference models were employed in an intention-to-treat analysis. Results: The new Integrated-IAPT was associated with a decrease of 6.15 (95% CI: −6.84 to −5.45) [4.83 (95% CI: −5.47 to −4.19]) points in the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 [generalized anxiety disorder-7] and £360 (95% CI: –£559 to –£162) in terms of secondary health care utilization costs per person in the first three months of treatment. The Integrated-IAPT was also associated with an 8.44% (95% CI: 1.93% to 14.9%) increased probability that those who were unemployed transitioned to employment. Conclusions: Mental health treatment in care model with Integrated-IAPT seems to have significantly reduced secondary health care utilization costs among persons with long-term physical health conditions and increased their probability of employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the nature of the discipline, it might be assumed that clinical psychology is an ethical profession, within which effective ethical decision-making is integral. How then, does this ethical decision-making occur? This paper describes a systematic review of empirical research addressing this question. The paucity of evidence related to this question meant that the scope was broadened to include other professions who deliver talking therapies. This review could support reflective practice about what may be taken into account when making ethical decisions and highlight areas for future research. Using academic search databases, original research articles were identified from peer-reviewed journals. Articles using qualitative (n = 3), quantitative (n = 8) and mixed methods (n = 2) were included. Two theoretical models of aspects of ethical decision-making were identified. Areas of agreement and debate are described in relation to factors linked to the professional, which impacted ethical decision-making. Factors relating to ethical dilemmas, which impacted ethical decision-making, are discussed. Articles were appraised by two independent raters, using quality assessment criteria, which suggested areas of methodological strengths and weaknesses. Comparison and synthesis of results revealed that the research did not generally pertain to current clinical practice of talking therapies or the particular socio-political context of the UK healthcare system. There was limited research into ethical decision-making amongst specific professions, including clinical psychology. Generalisability was limited due to methodological issues, indicating avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological therapy today plays a key role in UK public mental health. In large part, this has been through the development of the (specifically English) Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. Through IAPT, millions of citizens have encountered interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy, largely for the treatment of depression and anxiety. This article interrogates how this national response to problems of mental ill-health – and the problematization itself – was developed, accounted for, and sustained. By imbricating economic expertise with accounts of mental ill-health and mechanisms of treatment, IAPT has revivified psychological framings of pathology and therapy. However, it has done so in ways that are more familiar within biomedical contexts (e.g. through recourse to randomized controlled trial studies). Today, the initiative is a principal player in relation to which other services are increasingly developed. Indeed, in many respects IAPT has transformed from content to context within UK public mental health (in a process of what I term 'contextification'). By documenting these developments, this paper contributes to re-centring questions about the place and role of psychology in contemporary healthcare. Doing so helps to complicate assumptions about the dominance of linear forms of (de)biomedicalization in health-systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hormones and surgery are the mainstay of treatments available routinely for transsexual patients in the UK. The condition and approach to it by mental health professionals are explored within the paper by the author who has run a specialist psychotherapy service for patients with gender dysphoria for eight years at The Portman Clinic in London. In the paper he describes the challenges posed by the therapist in treating these patients and important factors in the treatment to enable psychotherapy to be a useful treatment option. He details some of his experience of treating transsexual patients within a homogenous outpatient slow-open group analytic psychotherapy group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empty spaces resulting from lateness or absence are not uncommon in groups. The meaning of empty spaces needs to be analyzed not only in and by the groups but also with reference to possible theoretical explanations. They may be understood as manifestations of the anti-group and by referring to notions of subjective emptiness described, for example, by Fairbairn, Kernberg, and Balint. Feeling ‘fuller’ may be experienced as threatening to individuals who are ‘empty of themselves’. However, the transitional space potentially provided by a psychotherapeutic group can provide a shared space in which the capacity to relate and feel emotionally nourished may develop. This paper analyzes how a developmental process in empty space groups may be apparent in those sessions in which the group is complete and why it is that the therapist should not collude with the group's avoidance of its members' capacity for fullness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins with a brief account of the theoretical traditions that have framed the discussion of class in British sociology. It goes on to discuss the changes in class structure in the last 50 years and summarizes the most recent work on how social class affects people's lives. Finally it makes some suggestions about the relevance of this for clinicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces an international essay competition organized by the journal with a prize of 600 euro from its publisher SAGE. It informs that students belongs to analytic psychotherapy training group can submit articles integrated with theoretical material with clinical issue. It informs that members of international senior group analyst's panel will judge the papers which include Professor Elizabeth Rohr from Germany, Jane Campbell from Great Britain and Ivan Urlich from Split.