Service : Psychologically Informed Consultation and Training Team

We provide consultation, training, and support professionals (GPs, social care), who work with people with complex emotional needs, or people who have difficulties associated with a personality disorder.

Our aim is to develop your skills and overall confidence to continue providing outstanding care.

This includes if you’re working across community, inpatient, primary care settings and third sector services across Berkshire.

We’re a team of psychologists, psychotherapists, and lived experience practitioners, who have who have worked with people with complex emotional needs which may be associated with a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), also known as borderline personality disorder (BPD).

We’re part of the Intensive Management of Personality Disorders and Clinical Therapies (IMPACTT) team, but we do not provide direct care to patients with disorders.

We provide support to professionals through consultation and training.

We do this through individual consultation sessions or combine a programme of consultation and training to suit your team’s needs.

Professionals working in Berkshire Healthcare or the following types of organisations in Berkshire are welcome to book spaces on our training:

• primary care network
• voluntary/third sector organisations
• specialist placement/care providers
• social care and education sector
• key partner agencies, including emergency services

We will arrange a meeting with you, as an individual or as a team, to think about:

• building an understanding of someone’s life experiences, needs, behaviours, and risk, known as a formulation
• supporting you to deliver improved quality of care leading to more positive outcomes
• providing advice and support about your responses, including emotional responses, to difficult interactions, which may include individuals who call more frequently/ have unmet needs/ are emotionally distressed
• reflecting on the impact on teams and individuals when supporting people

Primary care network (PCN) staff, such as GPs, can access our virtual consultation slots via Teams from 1-2pm, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We offer bespoke, bitesize and advanced training options about working with people who may have difficulties associated with the diagnosis of personality disorder.

All our training is co-designed and co-delivered by clinicians and trainers with lived experience.

An example of our training sessions include:

• Knowledge and Understanding Framework (KUF) 3 Day Multi-agency Awareness Training (3 days across 3 months)
• Understanding Diagnosis and Development of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Formulating these Difficulties (1 day)
• Working with People who Self-Harm (1-hour bitesize session and 4.5 hour extended workshop options)
• Relational Working with People with Personality Disorder (1.5 hours)

Please contact us directly for our training catalogue to see available sessions and dates.

Books

You can find more information about personality disorder in the following publications. You may be able to find them in local libraries, or you can buy them online.

• What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr Bruce Perry (2022)
• Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir, by Marsha Linehan (2020)
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel Van Der Kolk (2015)
• Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, by Rachel Reiland (2018)
• Meeting the challenge, making a difference: Working effectively to support people with personality disorder in the community, by Heather Wood, Winifred Bolton, Kath Lovell, and Lou Morgan (2014)