Perspectives on Formulation Within Current Mental Health Nursing Practice

This chapter will draw together some of the current considerations around using formulation within mental health nursing practice. It will begin by identifying the literature currently available to us which involves mental health nursing professionals as part of the multidisciplinary team who use and contribute to formulation, whether this be individually or as part of a team. We will then move on to examining student mental health nursing views and perspectives on using formulation by presenting outcomes from two online activities which were part of a module on learning about formulation in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. We will close the chapter with what all this may mean for the current use, development of and future outlooks on what formulation could look like, which will lead in to the ‘doing collaborative formulation’ chapters of the book. In these chapters, differing authors and contributors demonstrate their outlooks, practical applications and use of theory—with the aim of helping an individual reflect on wellbeing factors and flourish as a result.