Background: Literature has suggested that therapeutic engagement is considered as an important construct to assess as premature termination of therapy can influence clinical outcome and increase the chances of services becoming cost ineffective (McMurrana, Huband & Overton, 2010). This study aimed to explore how Psychologists' make sense of and understand their engagement with service users in a Medium Secure Unit (MSU).
Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants (psychologists working in a MSU) and the transcripts were subjected to lnterpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
Results: Three super-ordinate themes emerged from the data with sub-ordinate themes: 'being human together', 'the matryoshka doll of containment' and 'the psychologist as an empowerer in a disempowering system'. The research identified that the participants in the study described experiences of relating to service users at a humanistic level, their experiences of feeling contained, and being a facilitator of containment. The narratives also captured the experiential claims of service users being in a disempowered system but also the psychologists being a facilitator of empowerment.
Conclusions: The recommendations that arose were placed within literature and the methodological limitations of the study. They were centered on how services and psychologists can aid service users' engagement in psychological therapies, within MSU
