DESIGN IN MENTAL HEALTH 2022 KEYNOTES


Stopping seclusion from creating a lasting barrier


Giving a thought-provoking joint presentation at the Design in Mental Health 2022 Conference, Paula Reavey, Professor of Psychology and Mental Health at London South Bank University, and Steve Brown, Professor of Health and Organisational Psychology at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, discussed a study examining the impact of the environment on service- users during periods of de-escalation and seclusion. The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.


Speaking as part of a session entitled ‘Safe and Balanced Environments’ on the morning of the conference’s first day, Professor Reavey explained that she and Professor Brown are part of a broader team of researchers ‘interested in the relationship between psychological states and environments’. For the past 20 years, Professor Reavey has conducted research in a variety of inpatient and community mental health settings – across general and secure psychiatric environments – working as part of interdisciplinary research and clinical groups with colleagues from across the world. She has published over 100 hundred articles and 10 books, and is the founder of the Design with People in Mind book series, on behalf of the DiMHN. A DiMHN Board Member, she leads the Network’s Research & Education Workstream. Professor Brown’s research interests,


meanwhile, are around service-user experiences of secure mental healthcare, and ‘social remembering within marginalised and excluded groups’. He is the co-author (with Paula Reavey) of Vital Memory and Affect: Living with a difficult past (2015, Routledge), Psychology without Foundations: History, philosophy and psychosocial theory (with Paul Stenner, 2009, Sage), and The Social Psychology of Experience: Studies in remembering and forgetting (with David Middleton, 2005, Sage).


PhD students presenting posters on their research Professor Reavey began by saying how pleased she was to be speaking at this year’s Design in Mental Health conference, and was equally delighted that two of her


Professor Steve Brown of Nottingham Trent University, with a slide showing the aims of the researchers’ ongoing study on how the environment and practices in psychiatric wards – including de-escalation techniques and seclusion space – impact levels of distress in staff and service-users.


PhD students, Donna Ciarlo, and Katherine Harding – who are also undertaking research on the relationship between environments and mental health – were attending, and would be presenting posters on their PhD research throughout the two days. She told delegates: “While we will be presenting today about a particular study today on seclusion (titled Safety and Psychologically Informed


Prof. Steve Brown: “We wanted to know things such as ‘How can patients calm down if they’re isolated in small rooms?’ and ‘How can staff members feel safe and calm with this sort of risk of aggressive behaviour on the ward?’ ”


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Environments (PIE): The (thorny) case of seclusion), our broader mission is about understanding the relationship between environments and psychological states. We also seek to understand the relationship between physical safety and psychological safety; I think sometimes psychological safety sits in the background when we’re making design decisions.” She added: “I should also stress that we are psychologists, not architects or designers, so one of the reasons we wanted to speak was to open up a dialogue between ourselves as researchers and academics, and the people in charge of designing facilities of this nature. I think we all share the mission at DiMHN that design should come with psychological safety built in, as well as addressing physical safety issues.”


NOVEMBER 2022 | THE NETWORK


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