UTB-MA
About UTB-MA
Understanding Therapeutic Breakdown: A Measure for Malignant Alienation in Mental Health Care
UTB-MA is my research project at the University of Birmingham, focusing on Malignant Alienation (MA); a phenomenon where people living with mental illness experience a breakdown in therapeutic relationships, leading to reduced quality of care, stigma, and disengagement.
Although the concept has been linked in past research mainly to suicide, little attention has been given to how MA impacts treatment outcomes, recovery, and the lived experiences of those with mental illness. This gap leaves clinicians without clear ways of identifying or addressing it in practice.
Why this research matters
Breakdowns in therapeutic relationships can have devastating consequences. Service-users may feel unheard, mislabelled, or distanced from their care teams, resulting in poorer outcomes and prolonged distress.
By developing the first scientific measure of MA, UTB-MA seeks to:
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Provide a reliable tool for researchers and clinicians to recognise when alienation is happening.
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Highlight how systemic issues such as stigma and insensitivities contribute to care breakdowns.
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Generate evidence that can support training, policy, and clinical practice reforms to build compassionate, equitableand recovery-oriented mental health care.
Aims
1) To develop a validated Malignant Alienation Scale (MAS) to measure MA in psychiatric care across Priory psychiatric hospitals nationwide.
2) Investigate MA prevalence across different mental health settings.
3) Examine service user attitudes toward relationships with mental health professionals and how these contribute to the process of MA.
4) Determine whether there are significant relationships between certain demographics of service users (e.g. diagnosis, gender, age,r ace) and researching these further, after scale validation point.
Who is involved?
UTB-MA is led by Henna Chumber, a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Birmingham, under the supervision of Professor Jon Catling, and Dr Anthony Murphy.
The research has currently been approved by the Priory Research Team and is awaiting approval from the University's Research Governance Team, in line with the NHS ethical framework.
