The Power Threat Meaning Framework A conceptual alternative to psychiatric diagnosis

With Dr Lucy Johnstone, Consultant Clinical Psychologist.
Talk given on 22/01/2021.
Synopsis
The Power Threat Meaning Framework, launched in January 2018, is the result of a 5 year Division of Clinical Psychology -funded project to develop a conceptual alternative to the psychiatric diagnostic model. The project team, with Dr Lucy Johnstone and Professor Mary Boyle as lead authors, is a co-produced approach to identifying patterns in distress which synthesises evidence about the causal roles of power, evolved threat responses, and personal meanings within wider discourses and socioeconomic and cultural contexts. The Framework has attracted national and international interest, and is intended to provide the basis for an ongoing series of developments in clinical practice, peer support, service design and commissioning, professional training, research, and social policy. Lucy Johnstone will outline the principles of the project, and describe some of its current applications.
Biography
Dr Lucy Johnstone is a consultant clinical psychologist, author of 'Users and abusers of psychiatry' (2nd edition Routledge 2000) and co-editor of 'Formulation in psychology and psychotherapy: making sense of people's problems' (Routledge, 2nd edition 2013) and ‘A straight-talking guide to psychiatric diagnosis’ (PCCS Books 2014), along with a number of other chapters and articles taking a critical perspective on mental health theory and practice. She is the former Programme Director of the Bristol Clinical Psychology Doctorate and was the lead author of 'Good practice guidelines on the use of psychological formulation' (Division of Clinical Psychology, 2011.) She has worked in Adult Mental Health settings for many years, most recently in a service in South Wales. She was lead author, along with Professor Mary Boyle, for the ‘Power Threat Meaning Framework’ (2018), a Division of Clinical Psychology-funded project to outline a conceptual alternative to psychiatric diagnosis.

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This framework for transforming the approach to human distress is the way forward. Herding people into arbitrarily named groups to decide on unproven medical managements has failed completely over the last 4 decades and change is essential.