Daniel Thomas-Wallis

CEO and Director of Thrive Together Psychotherapy, specialising in mental health and relationship support for individuals and couples. Expertise in crisis intervention and development of structured, high-standard therapeutic services. Responsible for in-house training and integration of depth psychotherapy with accessible care pathways. Proven leadership in enhancing therapeutic practices and client outcomes.

MSc Qualitative Research Project

"Exploring the Notion of Self-Sacrifice in Psychotherapy: a Case Study”.

Sacrifice was recognised as being entwined in a religious practice that can transform the idea of self-harm and suicide into a positive moral experience identified as an economic exchange. Using a case study method developed by Greenwood & Loewenthal, clinical and supervision case notes were subjected to hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis. This was grounded in an epistemology of “Idealism,” in which scientific knowledge is believed to be constructed from a researcher's conscious experience of the world (Greenwood and Loewenthal 2008). This research aimed to describe a client-therapist interaction to explore possible understandings of the notion of self-sacrifice in psychotherapy. The therapist categorised findings under the following headings: “Splitting of the good and bad object”, “The Scapegoat”, “Moral Masochism as Self-Sacrifice” and “The Wounded Healer”. The findings of this study suggest that, for this client, the notion of self-sacrifice is grounded in a traumatic, painful loss that led to self-blame, self-reproach, and self-punishment, attempts to prevent re-experiencing grief. The suggestion here was that the client's notion of self-sacrifice is an unspoken attempt at self-salvation in disguise.

BSc Quantitative Research Project

“The Face of Conflict: The Effects of Focus and 'Just World Beliefs' on Anger and Blame in a Simulated Conflict Situation”.

This experimental study explored the idea that reducing blame and anger is possible by focusing on the conflict issues. It also sought to establish how an individual's perception of justice may contribute to heightened anger and blame during conflict. This study hypothesised that Issues-focused conflict with low just world beliefs would demonstrate lower levels of blame and anger than person-focused conflict with high levels of just world
beliefs. Participants were exposed to a conflict situation via the social networking site Windows Live Messenger and asked to either focus on the person or the issues. Participants' facial expressions were recorded during this interaction and analysed using Ekman & Friesen's 1978 Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Questionnaire data were collected post-conflict to assess levels of blame and anger. The Just World Hypothesis scale was re-coded using a media split to identify participants with high and low levels of beliefs in the Just World. Results supported the hypothesis that low-level beliefs in a just world are associated with lower levels of anger, suggesting that when an individual believes they are being mistreated, they devalue the opponent's attractivenessand consider angry retaliationjustified.