Mentalizing in Practice: Working with Parents and Infants

Seminar 1 – Introduction to mentalizing; working with parents and infants

On this first day, we will cover mentalizing as a developmental and relational construct, one that is particularly helpful for framing early years work, as it offers a sense of how the work of parent or carer is at least as much about assisting in the collaborative endeavour with the baby of ‘mind-making’, as it is in body-rearing. The theory will be presented in an accessible way that assumes no prior knowledge of mentalizing.
We will reflect on how this relates to work with parents and infants and think about how a mentalizing approach can help parents to begin the process of reflecting on their own and their children’s mental states, leading to more emotionally attuned parenting, more secure attachment relationships and an associated decrease in what at times might present as child protection concerns.

Seminar 2 – Mentalizing as a tool (assessment, observation and intervention) and an introduction to Parental Embodied Mentalizing (PEM)

We will review the learning so far and focus on thinking about mentalizing as a tool, including looking at the parent-infant relationship from the infant’s perspective. There will be an outline of some tools and techniques that can be used in the clinical work with parents to help clinicians focus on the parental skills (mentalizing the infant’s experience, sensitivity, mirroring, attunement).
Dr. Shai, founder of PEMworks, will present a theoretical and empirical overview of Parental Embodied Mentalizing, the full body movement and dynamic non-verbal relationship between parents and their children. Dr. Spencer will offer insights into how clinicians and health professionals can apply PEM interventions in parent-infant video feedback methods, to enhance the wellbeing of children and their families. She will do this by presenting video-recorded case-studies and vignettes of her clinical experience integrating PEM in her therapeutic work with high-risk dyads on a mother and baby inpatient unit.

Seminar 3 – Mentalizing in networks and teams and its importance for our role as professionals and the wider system (AMBIT)

On our third morning together, we will learn about applying mentalizing in support of professionals themselves, whose capacity to ‘carry on and keep mentalizing’ is often challenged in contexts that involve high stress and which require the integration of contributions from what are often large and complex multiagency and multi-professional networks.
In this part of the training, we will be drawing on some key lessons and practices developed in AMBIT (Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment) - an approach that is used by a wide array of teams across the world, where these kinds of contexts (including clients who are often at best ambivalent in respect to their engagement with professional help) are common features.

Seminar 4 – Mentalizing with complex cases and safeguarding concerns

On our final day together, we will focus on working with complex cases. Angeliki Tsiftsi and Xenia Andreas from Barnet’s Early Years Parenting Hub will present case material about the way in which a mentalization-based approach to intervening with families can help professionals begin to address the individual, family and systemic challenges of working with complex cases where children are at risk.

• This course is suitable for education, health and social care workers e.g. early years professionals, nurses, psychotherapists, psychologists, family therapists, health visitors, social workers and psychiatrists.
• For practitioners who are looking for an introduction to mentalizing with parents and infants or practitioners who have been on other mentalizing training but want to think about how to embed it in early years work.

This course aims to:

• Develop your knowledge and understanding of Mentalizing; specifically thinking about working with parents and infants.
• Provide you with tools and skills for supporting mentalizing in the parent-infant relationship
• Enhance your reflectiveness as a professional, team and service, to support mentalizing during stressful and risky contexts.

The online platform Zoom will be used to deliver this training. Prior to booking on, please ensure you meet the system requirements so you're able to join this training.  Before the training, please test your equipment is working by going to Zoom.us/test and follow the instructions.

We are delighted to announce that due to the generous funding of The Chesser Trust, we are able to allocate funded places on this course for psychotherapy trainees who are placed in under-fives and early years settings. This is to support the development of your practice with this age group, who are often overlooked in therapeutic training and provision.

As a result of structural barriers leading to the under-representation of people with particular protected characteristics within the therapeutic workforce, we are prioritising funded places for people who identify as being minoritised. This includes, but is not limited to, people who are ethnically minoritised, LGBTQIA+ people, people with a disability and people who identify as being from a working-class background and/or who are on low income (less that £19,200 annually, before tax). All applicants must be a permanent resident in the UK.   

Please complete the application form and send with supporting documentation (proof of training course and proof of placement) by Monday 15th May to apply (please see application form for more details). Eligible applications will be awarded on a first come, first served basis.