A Portfolio of Academic, Therapeutic Practice and Research Work Including An Investigation of the Narratives of Adults Bereaved by Parental Suicide in Childhood

This portfolio is comprised of three dossiers which reflect the academic, clinical and research work that form part of the Practitioner Doctorate (PsychD) in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology. The academic dossier is made up of three essays. The first essay explores the concept of countertransference in psychodynamic play therapy with children. The second essay examines the use of the psychodynamic concept of countertransference in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The third essay critically discusses the diagnostic category of Gender Identity Disorder and considers the implications for therapy. The therapeutic practice dossier includes a description of my clinical placements over my four years of training. It also contains a piece entitled 'My final clinical paper' which gives an account of my personal and professional development and emerging identity as a counselling psychologist. The final dossier holds three pieces of research all of which explore the experience of parental suicide and its relevance to therapeutic practice. The first piece is a literature review which investigates the nature of grief for children bereaved by parental suicide and the potential impact on identity. The second is an empirical piece which explores the narratives of adults bereaved by parental suicide in childhood. Five participants were interviewed and the method of narrative analysis was employed to analyse the data. Clinical implications and recommendations for future research were also discussed. The third and final research paper investigated the experience of parenthood for adults bereaved by parental suicide in childhood. Semistructured interviews were conducted with four individuals and the data subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.