Short Course: Short Term Mentalization and Relational Therapy (SMART) Training
The Anna Freud Centre's short courses in the practice of SMART are designed for NHS professionals.
SMART is a brief (8 to 12 session) intervention for children and families. The aim of SMART is to promote mentalization, which is the way people understand other people's ways of thinking and feeling.
SMART also seeks to focus on helping the family to understand each other's ways of thinking and feeling. The idea is that, once this happens, communication and the capacity to solve problems together will improve in the family.
Usually families meet with their SMART therapist on a fortnightly basis. The first meeting usually lasts for 90 minutes, while the subsequent sessions last 50 minutes.
At the beginning of each meeting the family and therapist remember what happened during the previous meeting and discuss what they thought about it after the meeting.
Sometimes, the family is given an activity to work at home and then report their thoughts about it by writing them down in a family notebook.
The therapist constantly invites the family to think about their feelings and those of the other family members and to learn how to speak to each other about the way they see their difficulties and ask each other for help thinking about them.
For more information and to be added to the courses and events mailing list please email course.enquiries@annafreud.org.
For more information about the AFC's ongoing SMART services, click here. To read about the SMART project, please click here.
SMART is also a key component to the AFC's Renal Project.
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