We fund vital research and innovation to improve the lives of people with personality disorders and complex trauma.

The Cassel Research Unit was established in 1995 to promote and coordinate research into personality disorders.

It aims to develop studies in the area of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychosocial approaches to personality disorder and to improve the evidence-base of treatment within NHS psychotherapy services. 

Over the years, the work of the unit has helped establish and consolidate a research culture within the hospital and psychotherapy services in general. It has published a wide range of research articles and papers in peer-reviewed journals and collaborates with other organisations in and outside the NHS.

The Cassel Hospital Charitable Trust’s commitment to research and dissemination of research findings brings great benefit to people living with personality disorders and complex trauma by helping to create better care and treatment. 

In addition to widening the evidence base for effective treatments, it provides robust systems for assuring high quality treatment at The Cassel and beyond and provides evidence for effective  staff training. A large proportion of research is co-produced with patients. This ensures research is relevant to the needs of this patient group and provides opportunities for ‘experts by experience’ to contribute. 

Short term interventions

One important study has  shown that short-term interventions may be helpful to people with a diagnosis of personality disorder and complex trauma.

Pathway to recovery

Our current focus is on examining the pathway to recovery and remission in patients with personality disorders. In 2021, Phase 1 focussed on building a manually annotated dataset, which is the first step to building an algorithm to identify recovery. This dataset represents a gold standard, where a number of patients have been coded by an individual reading the patients’ notes.

Phase 2, with the help of a service user and carer focus group, will build on the rich resources available in Clinical Records Interactive Search  (CRIS). This study will provide the first insight on recovery using large anonymised electronic health records. Its findings will have direct implications on understanding.

The research findings have now been published.

You can also read the outcome of our work in  the BJPsych Open by this collaboration between King’s College London, and the University of Bristol.

The Mental Health Review Journal has published several key papers on our findings.

Training for democratic therapeutic community practitioners, and workers in therapeutic and enabling environments

• Psychoeducation for borderline personality difficulties: a preliminary study
• Personality disorder service provision: a review of the recent literature
• The impact of a co-produced personality disorder training on staff burnout, knowledge and attitudes
• A qualitative evaluation of staff experience in the delivery of a co-produced consultation service for personality disorder

If you would like to help people living with mental illness, please make a donation or get in touch to find out more about the charity’s work. Keep an eye on our news page for updates on our Research & Innovation funding.