Marco Chiesa

Dr Marco Chiesa MD, FRCPsych has been Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy at the Cassel Hospital, Richmond since 1991. He is Director of the outpatient Adult Personality Disorder Service, which he developed and expanded over the years. The unit provides assessment and community-based psychosocial treatment for personality-disordered (mostly borderline) patients who reside within the London area. He is also Director of the Research Unit at the Cassel Hospital where he carried out a number of research projects in the field of treatment outcome for personality disorder and psychodynamic psychotherapy.

He was a Visiting Consultant at the Cardinal Clinic in Winsor for three years and has been working in private practice in SW London for over 20 years. His main interest is the treatment and management of patients with personality disorder and patients with psychiatric syndromes with associated personality disorder.

After graduating in Medicine at Milan University Medical School, he specialised in General Psychiatry both at Milan University and in London within the Charing Cross Hospital postgraduate training scheme, becoming first a Member and then a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He specialised further in Family Therapy at the Milan Centre for Family Studies and qualified as Member and then Fellow of the London Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Recent Publications (since 2000)
Chiesa, M. & Fonagy, P. (2000) Cassel personality disorder study: Methodology and treatment effects, British Journal of Psychiatry 176: 485-491
Chiesa, M., Drahorad, C. & Longo, S. (2000) Early termination of treatment in personality disorder treated in a psychotherapy hospital: A quantitative and qualitative study, British Journal of Psychiatry 177: 107-111
Chiesa, M. (2000) Hospital adjustment in personality disorder patients admitted to a therapeutic community milieu, British Journal of Medical Psychology 73: 259-267
Chiesa, M., Brambilla, D. & Simoncelli, K. (2001) A contribution to the problem of diagnosis in psychotherapy: An empirical study (in Italian) Psichiatria e Territorio 18: 26-32
Pringle, P. & Chiesa, M. (2001) From the therapeutic community to the community: Developing an outreach psychosocial nursing service for severe personality disorder, Therapeutic Communities 22: 215-232
Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P., Holmes, J., Drahorad, C. & Harrison-Hall, A. (2002) Health service use costs by personality disorder following specialist and non-specialist treatment: A comparative study, Journal of Personality Disorders 16: 160-173
Chiesa, M., Bateman, A., Friis, S. & Wiberg, T. (2002) Patients characteristics, outcome and cost-benefit of hospital-based treatment for patients with personality disorder: A comparison of three treatment programmes, Psychology and Psychotherapy 75: 381-393
Chiesa, M. & Fonagy, P. (2002) From the therapeutic community to the community: A preliminary evaluation of a psychosocial outpatient service for personality disorder, Therapeutic Communities 23: 247-259
Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P., Holmes, J. (2003) When less is more: An exploration of psychoanalytically oriented hospital-based treatment for severe personality disorder, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 84: 637-650
Chiesa, M., Wright, M. & Neeld, R. (2003) A description of an audit cycle of early dropouts from an inpatient psychotherapy unit, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 17: 138-149
Chiesa, M. (2003) Treatment approaches to the multi-problem family in specialist settings: The current state of the evidence base (in Italian), Abilitazione e Riabilitazione 12: 19-32
Chiesa, M., Pringle, P & Drahorad, C. (2003) Users’ views of therapeutic community treatment: A satisfaction survey at the Cassel Hospital, Therapeutic Communities 24: 129-143
Chiesa, M. & Fonagy, P. (2003) Psychosocial treatment of personality disorder: 36-months follow-up, British Journal of Psychiatry 183: 356-362
Chiesa, M. (2003) The shattering of expectations: A study of early dropout in the therapeutic community (in Italian), Religioni e Sette 18: 26-32
Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P., Holmes, J., & Drahorad, C. (2004) Residential versus community treatment of personality disorder: A comparative study of three treatment programs, American Journal of Psychiatry 161: 1463-1470
Chiesa, M., Wright, M. & Leger, D. (2004) The role of psychotropic medication in the therapeutic community: A survey of prescribing practices, Therapeutic Communities 25: 135-148
Chiesa, M. (2005) Modernisation or privatisation? Implications of recent reforms for the future of the NHS and for psychotherapy services, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 19: 71-85
Chiesa, M. (2005) Stigma and personality disorder (in Italian), Noos Aggiornamenti in Psichiatria 11: 185-196
Chiesa, M. (2005) Can psychoanalytic research integrate and improve knowledge for the clinician? Some reflections and an example, The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review 28: 31-39
Chiesa, M. (2005) Hospital-based psychosocial treatment of borderline personality disorder: A systematic review of rationale and evidence-base Clinical Neuropsychiatry 2: 292-301
Beecham, J., Sleed, M., Knapp, M., Chiesa, M. & Drahorad, C. (2006) The cost and effectiveness of two psychosocial treatment programmes for severe personality disorder European Psychiatry 21: 102-109
Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P. & Holmes, J. (2006) 6-year follow-up of three treatment programmes for personality disorder, Journal of Personality Disorders 20: 493-509
Chiesa, M., Harrison, M. & Liburdi, R. (2006) Psychosocial impairment and medium-term outcome in schizotypal personality disorder (in Italian) Psichiatria e Territorio 23: 1-8
Chiesa, M.  (2007) Pathological organisations of the personality: A clinical case study, British Journal of Psychotherapy 35: 395-410
Chiesa, M. & Fonagy, P. (2007) Prediction of medium-term outcome in Cluster B personality disorder following residential and outpatient psychosocial treatment, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 76: 347-353
Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P. & Bateman, A. (2007) Differences in clinical characteristics between patients assessed for NHS specialist psychotherapy and primary care counselling, Psychology and Psychotherapy 80: 591-603
Chiesa, M. (2007) Advances in quantitative research in psychotherapy and the importance of single case studies (in Portuguese), Revista Brasileira de Psicoterapia 9: 263-275
Chiesa, M. (2007) Treatment of severe personality disorder: the central role of the interpersonal relationship as therapeutic factor (in Portuguese), Revista Brasileira de Psicoterapia 9: 134-143
Chiesa, M. (2008) Referral to tertiary psychotherapy services: The road to nowhere? Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy22: 75-87
Santiccioli, S. & Chiesa, M. (2008) Advances in the treatment of personality disorder at the Cassel Hospital  and their relevance to the Italian mental health system (in Italian), Psichiatria e Territorio 25: 1-7
Chiesa, M., Bateman, A., Fonagy, P. & Mace, C. (2009) Psychiatric morbidity and treatment pathway outcomes of patients presenting to specialist psychodynamic psychotherapy services: Results from a multi-centre study, Psychology and Psychotherapy 82: 83-98

Chiesa, M., Fonagy, P. & Gordon, J. (2009) Community-based psychodynamic treatment of severe personality disorder: Clinical description and naturalistic evaluation, Journal of Psychiatric Practice 15: 12-24
Chiesa, M. & Healy, K. (2009) The struggle to establish a research culture in the psychotherapy hospital: Reflections from the Cassel Hospital experience, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 73: 157-174
Chiesa, M. (2010) Research and psychoanalysis: Still time to bridge the great divide? Psychoanalytic Psychology 27: 99-114
Chiesa, M., Martino, F. & Pozzi, E. (2010) Psychosocial treatment refusal in personality disorder, Personality and Mental Health 4: 64–74
Chiesa, M. (2010) Institutional impact of scientific research, British Journal of Psychotherapy 26: 458–464
Chiesa, M. (2010) Anti-therapeutic factors in the long-term residential treatment of personality disorder (in Italian), Psichiatria di Comunitá 9: 113-119
Ribeiro, L., Target, M., Chiesa, M., Bateman, A., Stein, R. & Fonagy, P. (2010) The Problematic Object Representation Scales (PORS): Assessing object relations in personality disorder through the AAI protocol, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 74: 329-353
Chiesa, M., Sharp, R. & Fonagy, P. (2011) Clinical associations of deliberate self-injury and its impact on the outcome of community-based and long-term inpatient treatment for personality disorder, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 80: 100-109
Chiesa, M. & Fonagy, P. (2010) Scientific research, the therapeutic community and psychodynamic psychotherapy, Clinical Neuropsychiatry 8: 1-8

 

Contact details:

  • London private practice: 140 Palewell Park, East Sheen, London SW14 8JH tel. +44(0)20 8392 2896 m.chiesa@ucl.ac..uk