Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Senior Clinical/Counselling Psychologist in Eating Disorders
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Job Overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen to work within the CNWL eating disorders service. We are offering a permanent full time Senior Psychologist post within the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Service.
Main Duties of the Job
This position involves providing specialist therapies to clients across all sectors of care, although the majority of the work will be working with the inpatient staff and patients.
This includes the provision of highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy, whilst also offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to colleagues and to other non-professional carers. The post holder will be responsible for line management and clinical supervision to attached supervisees while working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams' policies and procedures. In addition, the post will require skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team and service. The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team providing assessment and treatment to adults with eating disorders.
Working for Our Organisation
The post holder will be based at the Paddington Clinic (Health @ The Stowe) and will provide clinical and other services across the inpatient, day patient and outpatient programmes. Depending on service need, you may be expected to work flexibly across sites (Chelsea, Paddington and Harrow-on-the-Hill). Service provision within this scope may at times involve travelling to different sites within the catchment area.
Detailed Job Description and Main Responsibilities
Clinical
- To provide specialist assessments of clients referred to the team, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations, and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care).
- To diagnose patients’ eating and related psychiatric problems.
- To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems. To employ methods based upon evidence of efficacy across inpatient, day patient and outpatient settings.
- To be responsible for implementing psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups. This occurs within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual.
- To integrate (with the psychological formulation) an understanding of the medical aspects of the eating disorders and associated medical conditions.
- To liaise with other clinicians involved in the patient’s care, in order that appropriate physical checks and interventions are carried out to ensure the patient’s physical safety.
- To understand the role of relevant physical treatments (e.g. nutrition, pharmacology).
- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
- To provide specialist advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
- To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni and multi-disciplinary care.
- To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
- To lead on psychological thinking and psychological treatment provision in our inpatient ward and day programme.
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Person Specification
Training & Qualifications
Essential Criteria
- An upper second class honours degree or higher in psychology or an equivalent subject relevant to mental health.
- D. Clin. Psych in clinical psychology/counselling psychology OR PGDip/MSc in CBT or CAT.
- Doctoral level training in an applied clinical field that includes models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology. This must be accredited by the relevant professional body.
Desirable Criteria
- Training in additional therapy models such as cognitive analytic therapy, EMDR, dialectical behaviour therapy.
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Knowledge and Skills
Essential Criteria
- Knowledge of the theoretical and evidence base for understanding, formulating and treating the eating disorders and comorbid personality pathology.
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of mental health.
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one other specialised psychological therapy.
- Training in supervision of trainees and assistants.
- Evidence of continuing professional development, as recommended by the relevant professional body.
- Maintaining a high degree of professionalism and commitment to ongoing therapy in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
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Desirable Criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of therapy in specific difficult-to-treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
- Publication and presentation of clinical research in the field of the eating disorders or associated areas of mental health.
- Knowledge of theory and practice of personality disorders treatment and therapy.
Experience
Essential Criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and evidence-based treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Substantial post-qualification experience of working within a relevant therapeutic framework, with patients who present with problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity. This should include specialist training/experience.
- Substantial supervised post-qualification experience of delivering evidence-based therapy for the eating disorders and common comorbid conditions.
- Provision of supervision (peer, individual or group) to trainees and assistants working in a mental health setting.
- Experience working with individuals who have personality disorders.
- Experience in working on an eating disorder inpatient ward.
Desirable Criteria
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
- Experience of the application of therapy in different cultural contexts.
- Supervised experience of delivering other treatments for the eating disorders, including cognitive analytic therapy, motivational work and/or dialectical behavioural therapy methods.
- Provision of supervision to clinicians and trainees working with the eating disorders.
Other
Essential Criteria
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
Desirable Criteria
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
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