“You can’t save everybody”: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis exploring UK Practitioner Psychologist trainees’ experiences and perceptions of working with patient suicidality

<b>Background:</b> In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to increase awareness of the public health significance of suicide, make suicide prevention a high priority on the global public health agenda and encourage countries to develop or strengthen national suicide prevention strategies through a public health approach (WHO, 2014). In the UK, there has been a shift from the treatment of suicidality in hospitals to outpatient primary or secondary care settings, where patients are increasingly referred for courses of evidence based psychological therapies. Practitioner psychologists and trainees play a major role in the delivery of these interventions. Although an array of studies have investigated the impact of patient suicide on a variety of Mental Health Professionals (MHPs), less is known about MHPs experiences of working with suicidality as distinct from suicide. In addition, a review of the literature found that no studies have explored UK trainee practitioner psychologists’ experiences or perceptions of working with patient suicidality. This gap in the literature exists despite the fact that trainees will almost always encounter suicidality during training, and that suicidality is ranked by MHPs as the most stressful patient presentation they can work with.<br/><br/><b>Aim: </b>The aim of this study was to address this gap in the literature by exploring trainee practitioner psychologists’ experiences and perceptions of working with patient suicidality. As such, two research questions were formulated:<br/>i) What is the experience of UK practitioner psychologist trainees when working with patient suicidality?<br/>ii) How do UK practitioner psychologist trainees perceive suicidality?<br/><br/><b>Methods: </b>A purposive sampling approach was used to identify and recruit 5 current UK practitioner psychologist trainees to take part in semi-structured interviews relating to their experiences and perceptions of working with patient suicidality. Interviews lasted between 59-75 minutes. The data that emerged from these interviews was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.<br/><br/><b>Findings &amp; conclusions: </b>The analysis of the data generated five super-ordinate themes: The meaning of suicidality, ‘Sitting in that darkness with them’, ‘There’s two different selves of me’, ‘We want to qualify!: being a trainee, and Barriers to reflection and engagement. These super-ordinate themes contained 19 sub-ordinate themes which captured how trainees understood, perceived and experienced working with patient suicidality. The implications of these findings for clinical practice and the field of Counselling Psychology are discussed. In particular, the research highlights gaps in current training provisions which have the potential to affect trainee’s interactions with suicidal patients. The findings add new dimensions to knowledge in highlighting how trainees may experience specific challenges when working with this population which diverge from those highlighted in the literature that has explored qualified psychologists’ experiences.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctoral Thesis

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Student thesis

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Hale, Tadhg Cian Brady

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Todd, Stuart
• Saltus, Roiyah

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

oai:pure.atira.dk:studenttheses/0580ee84-fb7e-45a9-ace0-0537f09ba533

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:pure.atira.dk:studenttheses/0580ee84-fb7e-45a9-ace0-0537f09ba533