Psychotherapeutic Inpatient Psychiatry for Relational Complexity

People with diagnoses of severe and complex personality disorder often require care across multiple services and prolonged inpatient treatment. Their transdiagnostic presentations of recurrent suicidality, eating disorders, neurodevelopmental conditions and substance misuse can mean hospital admission is unavoidable. Managing risk while promoting recovery can present significant clinical, ethical and relational challenges for both patients and multidisciplinary teams.

This one-day event will explore a practical, formulation-based approach to understanding and managing complexity in mental health care. Expert speakers will examine the relational factors that can influence admission, treatment and recovery, and discuss the application of these principles to eating disorders, autism, mental health law, capacity assessment, and relational prescribing.

The event is relevant to Consultant Psychiatrists, SAS Psychiatrists and Resident Doctors across all psychiatric specialties, particularly those working with patients who present with complex needs, high levels of risk, and co-occurring mental health conditions in inpatient, community or specialist settings.

After attending this event you will be able to:

• Understand the personal and economic cost of long-term hospitalisation of people with complex personality disorders, and why psychotherapeutically informed care is essential for both patients and staff in inpatient settings when admission is unavoidable.
• Understand how safety can be achieved through relational practice and a formulation based whole team approach in inpatient settings.
• Develop an ethical and psychotherapeutic understanding of the use of mental health law in people with the most complex relational disorders.
• Develop a relational approach to prescribing including safer prescribing in high-risk relational contexts with physical health co-morbidities.
• Develop a relational understanding of co-morbidities in people diagnosed with personality disorder in inpatient settings, such as eating disorders and autism

• HLO 1.1 Professional relationships
• HLO 1.2 Professional standards
• HLO 2.1 Communication
• HLO 2.2 Clinical skills
• HLO 2.3 Complexity and uncertainty
• HLO 3 Legislative frameworks
• HLO 5.1 Teamworking
• HLO 5.2 Leadership
• HLO 6.1 Patient safety
• HLO 8.2 Supervision

Dimitrios Chartonas is a general adult psychiatrist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He works as a consultant psychiatrist in the Camden and Islington Personality Disorder Service North London NHS Foundation Trust, where he cares for patients with severe and complex emotional and relational difficulties. He is a member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation, the European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders and the International Society of Transference Focused Psychotherapy. He has a special interest in psychodynamic psychiatry and applied psychodynamics. He has taught extensively on personality disorder relational prescribing and formulation-based psychiatric practice.

Haroula Konstantinidou is a Consultant Medical Psychotherapist and Clinical Lead for the Mentalisation-Based Therapy Programme in the Personality Disorder Therapy service in Leicester. She is the Training Programme Director in Psychotherapy for East Midlands and the Academic Secretary of the Medical Psychotherapy faculty. Haroula has a clinical and research interest in psychodynamic psychiatry with a focus on formulation, and is a founding member of PoPs-UK ( Psychodynamics of Prescribing), producing training packages on relational prescribing.

Sue Mizen is a Consultant Medical Psychotherapist and Jungian analyst. She developed the Relational Affective Model (RAM), a psychodynamic therapeutic-community approach for people with complex personality disorder presentations, while leading a specialist service in Devon for hospitalised patients with PD in Devon. Her PhD used functional neuroimaging to investigate mechanisms underlying the transdiagnostic presentations addressed by RAM. As Chair of the RCPsych Medical Psychotherapy Faculty, she led the HEARD study, culminating in a 2025 Centre for Mental Health report launched in Parliament, making the case for national investment in psychotherapeutic pathways for this patient group. She now provides RAM training for mental health teams

Eleni Paliokosta is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the specialist service for children with autism and complex neurodevelopmental disorders at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She has worked as a consultant in specialist services for 20 years and has extensive expertise in the assessment and management of children and young people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and co-morbid mental health or behavioural difficulties. Dr Paliokosta has an ongoing teaching research and training involvement in the field of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and has researched the effects of pharmacological interventions for ADHD in children with intellectual disability and the effectiveness of early parental interventions for preschoolers with intellectual disability. She is an ADOS-2 trainer.

Jacinta Tan is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and medical ethicist. With degrees in medicine, philosophy and psychology child health and sociology she thinks in an interdisciplinary way. Jacinta pioneered qualitative ethical enquiry in psychiatry and identified how personal identity and values are affected by anorexia nervosa. Jacinta has retrained to be a workplace coach and mentor. She still publishes academically and leads a group in the Oxford Collaborative Centre for Values Based Practice in Health and Social Care.

Tennyson Lee is a psychoanalyst and a Consultant in General Adult Psychiatry and Medical Psychotherapy and lead clinician at Dean Cross Personality Disorder Service an award winning clinical unit in the East London NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Lee is a certified teacher and supervisor in TFP accredited by the International Society of TFP (ISTFP), a member of the ISTFP certification board and of the Applied TFP to Psychiatric Services Committee and a founding member and chair of the TFP-UK group. He is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society on the clinical register of the Neuropsychoanalysis Association, a member of the Psychodynamics of Prescribing-UK group and an honorary senior lecturer at Barts Hospital Queen Mary University London and codirector of the Centre for Understanding of Personality Disorder (CUSP).

• View a video of the speaker alongside any slides

• Ask your questions to the speakers and chat with other delegates via the discussion forum

To successfully join the event online you will need:

• Access to a reliable internet connection
• A PC, laptop, tablet or phone

• Event registrations are confirmed when payment is received in full.
• Joining instructions are sent approximately one week in advance.

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• Event Cancellation Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Code of Conduct
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