| The NSPCC’s report All Babies Count suggests that in the UK, up to 200,000 babies under a year, every year, are living in households in which substance misuse, domestic violence and mental illness are real problems. How to help such parents and their babies is a pressing public health concern. These films, made by Dr Amanda Jones and Amy Rose, and sponsored by the NSPCC, aim to help practitioners of all kinds explore the salient themes from a psychodynamic perspective.
During the day, the 5 documentaries will be screened. Dr Amanda Jones (Consultant Perinatal Psychotherapist for North East London NHS Foundation Trust) will introduce the day. Then there will be large and small group discussions led by practitioners in the field about each film. The films highlight the central importance of babyhood and the consequences when a parent suffers a serious emotional breakdown during pregnancy and the postnatal period.
The films cover the following topics:
• the strain on clinicians working with babies and parents who are suffering and why communication between professionals can breakdown;
• the emotional experience of being a baby and how this both gets revived in practitioners but also how, for the baby, their emotional experience is profoundly affected by the parental states of mind;
• how violence in the parental couple can injure the bond between a mother and baby;
• how fathers can be forgotten: professionals are at risk of not thinking about the father’s internal world and emotional needs;
• the emerging findings that raise the question that a baby’s brain development is to some extent relationally co-constructed and influenced by the emotional milieu in which the baby is living.
COST: £35 including lunch and refreshments.
To register and pay please contact Vicky Raingold, The Squiggle Foundation, 48 Hide Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 4SF for an application form.
Email: info@squiggle-foundation.org
Tel: 07534422117
Please note the change of location. The nearest tube stations are Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road. Parking is limited.
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