Crisis Resolution & Home Treatment for Individuals with Complex Emotional Needs

Abstract

Findings from a recent qualitative evidence synthesis (Haslam, et al. 2024) highlight that mental health crisis care for individuals with Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) is lacking.
Specifically, where risk issues intersected with the diagnostic label of personality disorder, experiential accounts illustrate the potential for power imbalances within the caring relationship especially around decisional aspects of crisis care.
When viewing service users through a risk lens, clinicians were reported by peers as being ‘fearful’, and their practice described as being ‘defensive’.
Furthermore, they were experienced by service users as being dismissive, service users reporting feeling that they were not ‘listened to’ or that their perceived needs were not taken seriously.