| Summary: | 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. Family members of those with mental illnesses often report experiencing stigma as a result of this association. Studies of family stigma identify stereotypes of blame, shame and contamination. No studies have investigated family stigma towards adolescent siblings of those with Anorexia Nervosa. 232 adolescents (mean age=16.83yrs) completed measures of knowledge of eating disorders, familiarity with eating disorders, compassion, stigma towards those with Anorexia Nervosa and family stigma towards siblings. The data indicates that adolescents do not stigmatise those with Anorexia Nervosa or their siblings. Stigma is more strongly endorsed by males, 'non-white' participants, those less knowledgeable about eating disorders and without interpersonal contact with eating disorders. Compassion was negatively correlated with stigma. These individual differences are likely interconnected and have, implications for the design and implementation of anti-stigma programmes.
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