Nick Midgley - Minding the Child: Mentalization-Based Interventions with Children, Young People and their Families

Minding the Child considers the implications of the concept of mentalization for a range of therapeutic interventions with children and families. Mentalization, and the empirical research which has supported it, now plays a significant role in a range of psychotherapies for adults. In this book we see how these rich ideas about the development of the self and interpersonal relatedness can help to foster the emotional well-being of children and young people in clinical practice and a range of other settings.

With contributions from a range of international experts, the three main parts of the book explore:

the concept of mentalization from a theoretical and research perspective

the value of mentalization-based interventions within child mental health services

the application of mentalizing ideas to work in community settings.

Minding the Child will not only be of particular interest to clinicians and those working therapeutically with children and families, but will also be of interest to academics and students concerned with child and adolescent mental health, developmental psychology and the study of social cognition.

Nick Midgley is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Senior Research Fellow at the Anna Freud Centre / University College London, where he is also Programme Director for the MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice.

Ioanna Vrouva is a Trainee Clinical Psychologist at University College London.

First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Copyright 2012 selection and editorial matter Nick Midgley and Ioanna Vrouva; individual chapters, the contributors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Minding the child : mentalization-based interventions with children, young people, and their families / edited by Nick Midgley, Ioanna Vrouva.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-415-60523-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-415-60525-0 (soft cover) 1. Child psychotherapy. 2. Family psychotherapy. I. Midgley, Nick, 1968- II. Vrouva, Ioanna.

RJ504.M56 2012

618.92'8914dc23

2011039547

ISBN: 978-0-415-60523-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-60525-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-12300-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Times by Garfield Morgan, Swansea, West Glamorgan
Paperback cover design by Andrew Ward

Elizabeth Allison is a Psychoanalyst, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London and a Senior Publications Editor at the Anna Freud Centre. She received her doctorate from Oxford University and her current research interests include the application of psychoanalytic ideas to the study of literature.

Eia Asen, MD, FRCPsych works as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, as well as a Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy. He is the clinical director of the Marlborough Family Service in Central London and a Visiting Professor at University College London. He has authored and co-authored nine books, as well as many book chapters and scientific papers, mostly on working with families.

Dawn L. Bales is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, MBT trainer and supervisor. She works as the director of the expertise centre MBT in the Netherlands and does MBT research for the Viersprong Institute for Studies on Personality Disorders (VISPD).

Dickon Bevington is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, working in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. He also works in London at the Anna Freud Centre, where he co-leads (with Peter Fuggle) the AMBIT project and is part of the MBT-F team.

Karin Ensink, PhD is Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychology at Laval University, Qubec, Canada. Since completing her PhD on children's mentalization, she has been teaching modern psychodynamic approaches to the treatment and assessment of children and adolescents and conducts research on mentalization, attachment, trauma and personality in children and parents.

Pasco Fearon is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London and joint Director of the UCL Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology. His research focuses on early child development and particularly the role of attachment in risk for emotional and behavioural problems. His research is multidisciplinary, integrating traditional developmental and clinical psychology with methods from behavioural genetics and neuroscience. He is also the Director of the Anna Freud Centre's Developmental Neuroscience lab, and a visiting member of the faculty at the Child Study Center at Yale University.

Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA is Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis and Head of the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at University College London; Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, London; and Consultant to the Child and Family Programme at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Peter Fuggle is a Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Director of the Islington Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in London. Since April 2008 he has also worked at the Anna Freud Centre, both as Course Director of the CBT for Children and Young People Masters course and as Training Advisor for the Centre.

Lidewij Gerits is a child and adolescent psychotherapist. She is specialized in MBT play therapy and MBT group therapy. She worked for several years in an outpatient MBT treatment programme for adolescents with emerging personality disorder and their families and worked with adoptive children. She runs courses in MBT and now works in a private practice in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Ruth Jennings-Hobbs is an Assistant Psychologist at the Anna Freud Centre, London, where she evaluates therapeutic services. She co-supervises the research projects of postgraduate psychology students at UCL and she has a Masters (Distinction) in Developmental Psychopathology from Durham University.

Emma Keaveny is a Clinical Psychologist in the Parent Consultation Service and Mentalization-Based Treatment for Families team at the Anna Freud Centre, London. She also works part-time as a Clinical Tutor and Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London on their Doctorate in Clinical Psychology Course.