This webinar will be led by Dr Eia Asen from the Anna Freud Clinic.

Mentalization Informed Systemic Therapy (MIST) – Professor Dr. K. ‘Eia’ Asen will introduce the principles of Mentalization Informed Systemic Therapy (MIST) developed by Eia and Professor Peter Fonagy. The approach focuses on the application of mentalizing ideas in work with families to enhance communication and minimise misunderstandings leading to stressful interactions and controlling behaviours. MIST is an integrative approach bringing together psychodynamic principles, systemic theory, and a social ecological framework to understand and work with families. It is a flexible and time limited approach for use in clinical settings to address a range of difficulties experienced in families including emotional and behavioural problems, anxiety, depression, relational difficulties, and family conflict. The approach is relevant to early intervention when, ACEs e.g. Parental mental health, Substance abuse, Family Conflict, conflict are identified, or later stages when children or young people have been harmed, and the family is being worked with to test their capacity to provide safe care.

About the Speakers

Professor Dr. K. ‘Eia’ Asen
Eia is an M.D., FRCPsych, is employed as a Consultant Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. He also holds the position of Visiting Professor at University College London. Until September 2013 he held the position of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Marlborough Family Service (CNWL NHS Foundation Trust) where he was the clinical lead for many years. He qualified as a medical practitioner in Berlin, Germany, in 1971 and subsequently trained as a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London (1974-1978). Over the past thirty years he has been involved in the assessment and treatment of more than one thousand abused and neglected children and their families.