Annual Research Lecture 2018

Showing the effects of child psychoanalytic work: 25 years of research at the Anna Freud Centre.

This talk will outline a programme of research on child and adolescent treatment outcomes, led by Peter Fonagy and engaging many younger colleagues and senior collaborators in neighbouring fields over decades. We will touch on different ways of studying child analytic work, with most of the issues applying equally to work on adult outcomes. We focus on trying to show the effectiveness of child psychotherapy – a central concern for funders, but an effort which can also illuminate concepts and technique for practitioners. Issues of manualizing and measuring therapeutic process will be covered, as will the fruitfulness of mixed-method (quantitative and qualitative) process and outcome research with children and young people.

The talk will describe how many of the lessons learned were combined in designing the recent IMPACT study of adolescent depression (Goodyer et al., 2017), in which the Tavistock Clinic and child psychotherapists across the UK played a crucial part in carrying out a large randomized controlled trial funded by the UK government. In addition to summarising findings, we will outline how assessments of treatment process and subjective meaning were incorporated into the study, to ensure that we not only addressed core issues of treatment effectiveness, but also learned more about working in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with severely depressed young people.

The focus will be on discovery and interpretation in psychotherapy research, and where the field might go next.

Speakers: Mary Target and Nick Midgley | Click here to read about them

Please note: These tickets are not refundable 

If you are a Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society - Please email: Outreach@iopa.org.uk  

You are welcome to join us for a short drinks reception from 7.30pm