Teaching person-centered practice to pre-registration physiotherapy students: a qualitative study.

Introduction: There has been a call for healthcare to consider more explicitly the needs of the individual patient by adopting a person-centered approach to practice. Consideration needs to be given to how this is taught to pre-registration physiotherapy students.

Purpose: To understand how first-year pre-registration physiotherapy students envision their philosophy of practice and how person-centered aspects of that philosophy might be implemented in a clinical setting.

Transcultural aspects of eating disorders and body image disturbance.

Background: Unlike the majority of 'culture-bound syndromes', eating disorders are one of the few mental disorders initially conceptualized as 'culture-bound' to North America/Europe. Social norms vary massively within cultures-class, ethnicity and gender. Over time there have been substantial changes in body shape preferences.

'No entry', an invitation to intrude, or both? Reflections on a group of anorexic patients.

This paper describes the twice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a young woman who had undergone major bowel surgery in her early 20s, with no clear medical indication for the surgery. Whilst the concept of 'No Entry' described by Williams (, b) aptly describes many features of more 'typical' anorexic patients, this paper describes a particular group of anorexic patients, referred by their physicians for multiple medical procedures; and proposes there is a group of anorexic patients, repeatedly referred for medical investigations, into whom particular types of entries occur. These are entries into the body 'legitimized' as medical, with a trajectory towards multiple procedures, examinations and surgical operations.

A dangerous combination of binge and purge.

We present a 36-year-old female diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 11 years. In 2001, she underwent a total colectomy and further small bowel resection as a result of active Crohn's. Her residual anatomy consisted of 150 cm of small bowel to an end jejunostomy.

Using therapeutic groups to support women with faecal incontinence.

In this paper, the authors describe the use of facilitated patient groups, in the management of women with faecal incontinence (FI). Two types of groups are discussed--a psychoeducational group and a psychotherapy group. Detailed descriptions of some of the themes which emerged in these groups are provided.

Home parenteral nutrition and the psyche: Psychological challenges for patient and family.

The paper discusses the case histories of three patients who have faced the emotional implications of being initiated onto long-term parenteral nutrition (PN). In each case the patient's personal and family history, relationship to their illness and the presence or relative absence of resentments and grievances have influenced their ability to tolerate the training and the transition to home PN (HPN). In addition, the emotional importance of food and feeding from a developmental and social perspective is explored, together with the numerous psychological and social 'losses' experienced by all patients on PN and the adaptations required within the family setting.

Every person matters: enabling spirituality education for nurses.

Aims And Objectives: This paper aims to identify how the statutory requirements relating to spirituality in nurse education can be supported in preservice and in-service education, in the context of inter-professional working implied by every child matters (Department for Education and Skills (DfES) Every Child Matters: Change for Children. DfES, Nottingham DfES 2004a; Every Child Matters: Change for Children in Health Services. Department of Health, London 2004).

Anorexia nervosa in gastrointestinal practice.

Objectives: To characterize the demographic, psychosocial and prognostic features of patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) presenting to a gastroenterology service, and to compare them with patients presenting to an eating disorders unit.

Methods: A retrospective study set in two centres providing a local and tertiary service for gastroenterology and eating disorders. The notes of 20 consecutive patients with AN from each centre were compared.

A psychoanalytic psychotherapist working within psychiatry: covert and overt functions.

Within psychiatric practice, psychotherapy occupies a unique role. Not only is it a mode of treatment for some patients, it is also an explanatory model; not only is the psychotherapist called upon to fulfil numerous overt functions within the institution, there are also all sorts of other functions which a psychotherapist may be called upon or expected to fulfil, some more welcome and appropriate than others. Within medicine the choice of becoming a psychiatrist is often seen as feminine, unscientific, perhaps unsafe and slightly illicit.