A grounded theory study of the experiences of clinical psychologists working in crisis resolution and home treatment teams

There has been a rapid development and implementation of Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Teams (CRHT) in the United Kingdom over the past decade. The available research studies of this service provision to date have largely focussed on issues related to the ‘outputs’ of CRHT, for example cost efficacy and the impact on admission rates. There is no available research on the experiences of clinical psychologists within CRHT. This is despite the fact that it would seem that research exploring the experiences of clinical psychologists in CRHT is important, as working in a new area of service provision may present specific challenges. An understanding of the nature of these challenges is considered important in order to support clinical psychologists in these settings, and to sustain and improve service delivery. This study presents a qualitative exploration of clinical psychologists’ experiences of working in a CRHT. Eleven clinical psychologists were interviewed about their perceptions of working within CRHT, their relationships with other professionals and their experiences of working with service users in ‘crisis’. The Grounded Theory approach was employed to analyse participants’ accounts. Three broad themes relating to ‘Psychological and Clinical Work’, ‘Teamwork’ and ‘Positive and Negative Aspects of CRHT Working’ were identified in the study. The emergent themes are compared to the wider literature on clinical psychologists’ experiences of working in teams, and working with service users in crisis. The findings have a range of implications for clinical practice in CRHT, service development and future research