A Mentalizing approach for excluded, underserved and risky adolescents whose help-seeking is non-conventional

Overview

In this live stream presentation, Dr Bevington will cover a definition of mentalizing, and will link this framework for understanding to human sociality and networks, so that mentalizing can be seen as a marker of social capital as much as it is an individual psychological adaptation.

He will briefly sketch the powerful links that exist between Mentalizing and Epistemic trust, on which social learning depends. Then he will describe the conditions that call for AMBIT; a systemic and organisational application of mentalizing theory and practice that has particularly focused on offering pragmatic support to workers in pressurised settings. It does this by supporting the creation of 'well-connected teams' that can flex around the needs of clients whose help-seeking could be described as non-conventional, and where the 'dis-integrated' interactions between co-workers from multiple agencies can be especially challenging.

About the presenter

Dr Dickon Bevington

Dr Dickon Bevington MA MBBS MRCPsych PGCert FRSA is a consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with a background in Anthropology, Philosophy and Comparative religion, and more than 30 years experience working in NHS adolescent in-patient settings and an innovative outreach service for substance using youth. He is also Medical Director of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, where he is known as a developer of Mentalization-Based interventions, teacher and trainer.

With Dr Peter Fuggle he co-founded AMBIT (Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment) an approach to high risk young people whose multiple intersecting needs mean that conventional services struggle to deliver helpful interventions, and this approach is now in use in teams across the world serving a wide range of populations.

Dickon has published numerous peer reviewed papers and books including the 2nd edition of 'What Works for Whom: a critical review of treatments for children and families' with Fonagy et al. (Guilford, 2016) and with Fuggle, Fonagy et al 'Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment: a guide for teams to develop systems of care' (OUP, 2017) His recent titles are 'Mentalizing in Psychotherapy: a practitioners guide' (2022, Guilford) with Carla Sharp, and a second AMBIT title, 'AMBIT for people with multiple needs: Applications in Practice' is just out (OUP, 2023) describing AMBIT implementation stories from around the world.