A Portfolio of Academic, Therapeutic Practice and Research Work : Including An Investigation of Siblings and Eating Disorders : Recognition, Experience and Stigma.

This Portfolio is a collection of work spanning three years of training on the Practitioner Doctorate course in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology at the University of Surrey. The Portfolio comprises three dossiers pertaining to academic work, therapeutic practice and research respectively and aims to demonstrate the range of competencies and skills that I have developed across these three areas. Three essays are presented as part of the Academic Dossier. These have been selected to evidence my psychological understanding of child psychodynamic therapy, models of human distress and cognitive-behavioural therapy. The Therapeutic Practice Dossier outlines the three clinical placements that I have undertaken and the skills that I developed at each alongside my personal reflections. Additionally, it contains my Final Clinical Paper, which details my personal and professional development over the training and my understanding of Counselling Psychology. Finally, the Research Dossier contains three pieces of research; a critical literature review and two pieces of empirical research. Each piece is concerned with the sibling relationship in the context of eating disorders and represents a different type of methodological enquiry; a critical literature review using thematic synthesis, a thematic analysis of interview data and finally a quantitative analysis of questionnaire data