Confer - continuing professional development, seminars and conferences for psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE SPEAKER
AMANDA JONES PhD, is an Honorary Associate Professor of Warwick Medical School and head of North East London NHS Foundation Trust’s Tier 3 Perinatal Parent Infant Mental Health Service. She trained as a family therapist and then did her doctoral research at the Tavistock/UEL, which investigated how the maternal use of ‘projective identification’ can derail a baby’s development. In collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, Amanda was involved in the Channel Four documentaries ‘Help me love my baby’, winner of the 2007 Royal Society of Television’s best factual programmes award. She speaks at national and international conferences on psychodynamic parent-infant treatment and teaches on the clinical psychology programmes at UCL and UEL.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFANCY
BOOK TO ATTEND
BOOK ONLINE >>
This link takes you to a secure, partner website where your booking will be processed.
VENUE
EDINBURGH
St Trinnean’s Room
St Leonard's Hall
Pollock Halls
University of Edinburgh
18 Holyrood Park Road
Edinburgh
EH16 5AY
DIRECTIONS AND MAP
DATES
Saturday 19 May 2012 - Edinburgh
SCHEDULE
09.30 Registration begins
10.00 First session
11.15 Coffee
11.45 Second session
13.15 Lunch
14.15 Third session
16.00 End
CPD HOURS
Certificates of attendance for 5 hours will be provided at the event.
PROGRAMME DETAILS
FEES
Self Funded:
  • £90 + VAT

Organisationally funded:
  • £180 + VAT
REFRESHMENTS
The fee includes light refreshments and lunch
BOOKING CONDITIONS
Regrettably, refunds cannot be given in any circumstances. However, you may give your place to another person if you let us know that person’s name at least 24 hours before the event begins. We reserve the right to change a speaker at one of our conferences. However, if a solo presenter cancels we will offer a refund or transfer.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFANCY
and its implications for psychotherapy
SATURDAY 19 MAY 2012 - EDINBURGH
ABOUT THIS EVENT

This seminar has been designed in the light of accruing research evidence of the importance of very early experiences in the development of a core sense of self that is present throughout life. We now have much clearer understanding about how the emotional development of a baby is influenced by parental states of mind and emotional histories. The baby-self that develops during pregnancy and the first year of life resides deeply within us throughout adulthood, and emerges in intimate relationships and challenging situations throughout the life span.

This seminar will trace the reciprocal parent and baby co-constructions of this core self from a psychodynamic perspective, exploring how it is possible to work psychotherapeutically with people who are both traumatised by becoming a parent and those who have troubled object-relational worlds because of experiences in infancy. We will begin by exploring why becoming a parent can lead to a serious emotional breakdown and the impact this can have on a baby’s developing sense of self as she or he strives to elicit a caring response to their complete dependency and primitive neediness.

We will go on to consider some of the tensions and risks involved in working with the parents of unloved or feared babies, and look at therapeutic approaches that can help to dissolve projections onto the infant. Finally, we will explore how repetition compulsion can manifest in the parent-infant relationship and the parent-therapist relationship.

This seminar has been designed to demonstrate a therapeutic strategy for psychotherapists working with parents, either as adults who have come into the consulting room to seek help because they are struggling with difficult feelings towards their infant(s), or those who come into therapy as a mother-and-baby-dyad or family group. It will also be of importance to therapists working with adults who had traumatic infancies.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
CONFER takes its responsibility for environmental impact very seriously, and we welcome further suggestions.




© COPYRIGHT 2013 CONFER