| Summary: | This thesis is divided into two Volumes, representing the research and clinical elements submitted to the University of Birmingham in partial fulfilment of the deg'ree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Clin.Psy.D.). Volume I (the research component) contains three papers relating to individuals with intellectual disabilities and their support staff. The first is asystematic literature review . of two areas of intellectual disability research; factors affecting the likelihood of residential placement breakdown, and the impact of staff cognitions regarding challenging behaviour. From the overlap in the two bodies of literature, a framework is proposed linking staff attributions about the causes of challenging behaviour and risk of breakdown. The second paper reports on an empirical study designed specifically to investigate the validity of this framework. Both of these papers have been prepared for submission to the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. Whilst the required format for this journal has largely been adhered to here, to assist the reader, figures and tables have been embedded in the text. The third paper is a Public Domain Briefing Paper, summarising the main findings of the empirical study in order to aid dissemination to a wider audience. Volume II (the clinical component) comprises five anonymised Clinical Practice Reports , relating to work completed on the assessed clinical placements that form an integral part of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. The papers included are: the case of a 29 year old man experiencing generalised anxiety, considered from cognitive and psychodynamic perspectives; an analysis of the profile of referrals to a secondary care psychological therapies service for adults in terms of access, equity and fairness; the case study of a 71 year old man with Parkinson's disease, anxiety and anger directed at the NHS from a psychodynamic perspective; a single case experimental design evaluating the effectiveness of two interventions for a woman with severe intellectual disabilities and her staff team, and the case study of a 31 month old child with behavioural difficulties from psychodynamic, developmental, behavioural and systemic perspectives.
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