Richmond Personality Disorder Intensive Treatment Team

The service is available for adults aged eighteen and above who live in the Borough of Richmond.

We can also begin the assessment and engagement phase with patients aged 17 and a half, when referred from the Trust’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

PDITT works with patients with complex and pervasive emotional and relational difficulties.

Whilst the core diagnosis would be EUPD, diagnosis of other personality disorders and other disorders (e.g. Eating Disorders or ADHD) are NOT exclusion criteria.

However a stand alone diagnosis of Anti Social Personality Disorder is an exclusion criterion for our service.

Our opening hours

Monday to Friday 09.00 - 17.00

Team Consultant: Dr. Martin Humphrey

Team Manager, Specialist MBT Therapist: Sarah Marvelly-Bovill

Highly Specialist MBT Therapist and Supervisor: Hannah Pearce

Specialist MBT Therapist: Rachel Wilcocks

Specialist MBT Therapist: Sara Darington

A referral once accepted will then be followed by an assessment process and then may progress down a number of possible treatment pathways.

A brief overview is provided below:

Assessment and Engagement:

This involves meeting with the Consultant Psychiatrist  over a period of sessions to try to begin the process of understanding the difficulties impacting on a patient’s life, and think about them together. Any recommendations or plan going forward will be made explicit and involve the patient. This may or may not involve PDITT, psychology input form the Recovery Support Team, or the Service User Network Groups (SUN) for example.

MBT Programme:

Initially this involves a 7 week psycho-education course in a group setting which is an opportunity to learn about MBT and also experience being in a group. We explore the principles of MBT, concepts of attachment and relationships, and personality disorder. Psycho-education involves teaching and discussing with a group of people about their mental health and the impact on their lives. This can in and of itself feel beneficial.

Following this, it might be that the patient and the team agree that it would be helpful to continue onto the MBT Intensive Programme, and they will then start the 18 month treatment programme. 

Patients will have a named member of staff, their individual therapist who will co-ordinate their care and communicate with any other professionals or family/friends that they so wish, or are required to be involved. 

In the initial individual therapy sessions we will aim to review the care and crisis plans and the goals for therapy.

In the first 3 months of therapy we will work with the patient on a joint Formulation which will be discussed in the 3 month Treatment Care Programme Approach (CPA) review. This formulation aims to offer an understanding of a patient’s vulnerabilities from a MBT perspective.

The patient’s core therapy team will be their allocated Group Therapist and their Individual Therapist; however the other team members will be aware of all patients and their work in the programme.

externalpditt@swlstg.nhs.uk

All external referrals need to be made via the Kingston and Richmond Assessment Team, the single point of entry to all secondary mental health services.

This is usually made via the Richmond Wellbeing Service after their screening, following a GP or self referral.

We are a specialist service that is linked to the Recovery Support Teams, and as such we cannot be referred to directly.

Please email externalpditt@swlstg.nhs.uk if you have any questions.