Conference Agenda

As lecturers in the advanced training program for psychiatric nurses (60 ECTS), we explored how engaging students as co-researchers could deepen their understanding of research methods and evidence-based clinical practice within recovery-oriented care. The training program is organized with an interplay between theoretical and practical models. Rather than limiting the teaching to traditional lectures, we incorporated hands-on research training. We guided the students through the key elements of the research process. In a mini-version, the students conducted systematic literature searches, designed and carried out qualitative interviews, analyzed data, and presented their findings through research posters and invitations to co-write an article in a professional journal.

Using different methods including surveys, Delphi evaluation, and student reflections we examined the students learning about recovery and conditions that supported or hindered research-based learning in clinical settings.

Findings indicate that the hands-on approach fostered critical reflection and deeper discussions on recovery-oriented care, while practical constraints such as time pressure, competing clinical responsibilities, and varying levels of leadership support affected students' ability to carry out and engage in the research activities within clinical practice.

Emotionally demanding research (EDR), including qualitative research, brings unique risks for researchers’ mental health. Researchers can be those within or outside of academia (e.g., peer researchers), where lived experience is increasingly recognised as important in shaping the research. However, EDR must be conducted within a psychologically informed culture to avoid harmful mental health effects. Strategies have been identified to protect researchers’ mental health in EDR (Quinton et al., 2025). This study investigated the acceptability and feasibility of implementing these strategies across academic and non-academic contexts. 20 participants across research sectors and EDR disciplines completed an online survey on their views of strategies’ (1) acceptability, feasibility, and utility, and (2) barriers and enablers towards their implementation. Open-ended responses were analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Reflexive diaries and advisory group meetings further informed the analysis. Preliminary themes generated were: the need for further tailoring, supplementary educational resources, and the dependency on organisational resource. Strategies were perceived as acceptable and feasible but tailoring and resource is essential to ensure their effectiveness for the researcher and their context. This study contributes towards a better understanding of how to implement a more inclusive research culture for researchers’ mental health in EDR.

Paramedics work under extreme stress and in such conditions the risk of traumatisation and vulnerability is increased. From a psychological point of view, it is an important question which cases they identify as trauma, how individual trauma is transformed into a narrative and become part of their personal and professional identity, and what self-protection strategies they have developed during their careers to cope with emotionally stressful situations.
In our research, we conducted semi-structured interviews with six Hungarian paramedics, which were interpreted by interpretative phenomenological analysis. The focus of our analysis was the experience of trauma deriving from emergency situations, as well as individual characteristics and ways of coping with trauma.
In the stories told by the ambulance workers, we identified risk factors of traumatisation such as personal involvement, parallels with their own lives, and difficulties in experiencing overwhelming emotions emerged during patient care. The master themes of trauma recovery and self-protection include a sense of "I have done everything", the importance of individual meaning-making or the need to share trauma.
The aim of our research is to better understand the qualities of individual experiences in order to improve the effectiveness of interventions to support the mental health of ambulance workers.

In this communication I present some preliminary findings of one part of my ongoing qualitative research which aims at discovering various aspects of the psychoanalytic training as it is practiced according to the Eitingon training model of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

According to the Eitingon psychoanalytical training model, the supervisors of the candidate are different from her/his training analyst, so the supervisory experience is detached and different radically from the training analytic experience. In the Hungarian training model, however, the training analyst and the first supervisor is the same person and, sometimes, the first supervision is a natural continuation of the candidate’s personal analysis. This method was still practiced in the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society until quite recently.

Based on an earlier survey (Ajkay 1988) I conducted five interviews with those members of the Hungarian Society who were still trained in this method. The interviews are analyzed by mixed methodology using narrative analysis and grounded theory. That results seem to imply that, contrary to the commonly accepted view, the overdetermined nature of the relationship between the candidate and the training analyst does not diminish the candidate’s learning experience and professional maturation.