Psychoanalytic consultation frameworks in Forensic CAMHS: approaches to supporting professionals working with justice-involved youth

This thesis explores the use and application of psychoanalytic principles in a Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (FCAMHS) consultation model, presented through three distinct yet interrelated research articles. The first paper is a systematic review using narrative synthesis analysis to amalgamate existing literature conducted in the last ten years on mental health consultations with professionals working with at-risk or high-risk youth. The review identified significant gaps in the literature that call for more research on consultation structure to inform better guidance and practice. The second article is a qualitative research study using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore consultant (n=6) and consultee (n=3) experiences of either delivering or receiving a psychoanalytically informed FCAMHS consultation. Findings underscore the importance of psychoanalytic attention to relational dynamics, such as containment in the consultant-consultee relationship and understanding the child’s relationships to contextualise their forensic risk, in delivering meaningful forensic mental health consultations. The final article presents a thematic analysis of consultants’ (n=6) conceptualisation of forensic consultation and how 2 psychoanalytic principles inform its practice. The study identified distinct phases of consultation and explored how psychoanalytic thinking shaped each stage. The three articles contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how psychoanalytic thinking can be applied in various contexts, particularly in consultation. It further argues how the use of psychoanalytic concepts can be valuable to supporting professionals working with high-risk or justice-involved youth, a population that does not usually access mental health services.