Bethany Purcell

Thesis Title: Transdiagnostic Neurodiversity and Young People’s Mental Health: Squaring the Circle

Healthcare services are observing a rapid increase in the assessment and diagnosis of neurodivergent conditions in young people accessing mental health support. Despite this, the complex intersection between mental health and neurodiversity is not consistently characterised or understood. Clinical teams, patients and broader society typically view difficulties through the lens of traditional diagnostic categories, meaning that individuals with a sub-threshold presentation may not receive adequate support. Transdiagnostic approaches challenge this by considering mental health and neurodivergence at the trait level and can provide a scoping overview of an individual’s specific support needs.

The proposed project aims to characterise the links between mental health and neurodiversity and examine links between neurodivergent traits and mental health treatment outcomes. This will be achieved through factor analysis to model variation in neurodivergent traits, and comparison of the profiles of individuals for whom mental health treatment was successful, and those who did not experience significant change following mental health treatment. The project will also examine how young people integrate neurodevelopmental diagnoses into their understanding of their mental health via qualitative interview and reflexive thematic analysis. The research will take a participatory framework via consultation with the Birmingham Psychology Autism Research Team (B-PART) group and will be undertaken in collaboration with Forward Thinking Birmingham.

The outcomes of the proposed project will include the development of evidencebased practice in supporting young people with understanding how neurodivergent traits impact on their mental health. The examination of individual differences that support treatment effectiveness will contribute to personalising mental health support for young people and allow clinical services to approach neurodiverse presentations with increased understanding.

Biography:

Beth is a doctoral researcher with a keen interest in the experiences of neurodivergent individuals accessing mental health support and assessment. Upon graduating from her undergraduate in Psychology, her primary work experiences have been in healthcare, most recently as an Assistant Psychologist in an autism assessment team. Such experiences have allowed Beth to gain insight into the importance of empirical research on improving outcomes in mental health care, particularly for under represented groups including those with neurodivergent presentations. Beth went on to complete an MSc in Developmental Science and Neurodiversity, undertaking longitudinal research examining gender differences in the friendship experiences of autistic adolescents. As a neurodivergent researcher, Beth places significant importance on participatory approaches, striving to include experts by experiences in the design and implementation of clinical research.

Other research interests:

Autistic Camouflaging

Clinical confidence in diagnostic decision making

Gender differences in neurodivergent conditions

Department of Psychology, College of Life and Environmental Science

University of Birmingham

2025 Cohort

Email:

Supervisory Team:

Dr Andrew Surtees

Dr Ian Apperly

Dr Rory Devine

Collaborative Partner:

Forward Thinking Birmingham