25th of may - pre conference with Eia Asen and Haim Omer -

Hotel scandic Trianglen, Malmø, 9.00-16.00

'NVR meets MBT’ - Minding the child and the family

NVR (Non Violent Resistance) and mentalization inspired therapy ( including Multifamily Therapy) are leading multi-systemic approaches for helping families, schools and other systems. Both approaches aim at strengthening the parent-child relationship, amassing support for the family from wider circles, and creating bridges between parents and school. Both approaches acknowledge clear links to attachment theory. Although NVR and Mentalization Inspired Therapy have different emphases, they are highly complementary and compatible, so that professionals skilled in one of the approaches can benefit from employing principles and elements from the other.

Haim Omer and Eia Asen have given many workshops together which have successfully combined NVR and Mentalization Inspired Therapy

In this sparkling event Haim Omer and Eia Asen will invite us to their creative univers of therapy and treatment. - and we will link it all to 2 overall themes of the conference:

The first: Dont tell - Show

The second: How does these approaches link to attachment and the mentalization inspired approaches.

Eia Asen is together with Peter Fonagy and colleagues at the Anna Freud Centre, London member of a proud team of the most interesting ideas for therapy, assessment, and a constant development in the area of children, adolescent and families and all their systems.

We are very proud to have this special team on stage for a day - prepare yourself to get spoiled in ideas and to have fun.

Haim Omer was born in Brazil but lives in Israel. He teaches at the School for Psychological Sciences at Tel-Aviv University. He has adapted the model of non-violent resistance, as developed by Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others in the socio-political field, to the context of school, family and community. The efficacy of the model has been established by controlled studies made in various countries. He has published 8 books and over 70 articles. Hundreds of seminars and workshops have been dedicated to the approach in England, America, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Brazil and China. The present is the fourth international conference on NVR.

Eia Asen grew up in Berlin but has lived and worked in London for more than 40 years. He now holds the position of consultant child, adolescent and adut psychiatrist at the Anna Freud Centre, having previously led the Marlborough Family Service, a community-based clinic dealing with multi-problem families. It is here that he and colleagues have developed MFT over the past 35 years, with the aim of connecting families presenting with similar issues and problems and working out together innovative ways of overcoming these. There is now a considerable evidence base for the efficacy of the approach. Eia Asen has published many books, articles and book chapters and he teaches regularly in Europe, Asia and America. He also holds the position of Visiting Professor at University College London.

Margaret Smith and Denise Wilson (UK)

Dr Margaret Smith and Denise Wilson, Southampton City Council and Solent Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service UK

Pre conference workshop, on the 25th of may 16.30 pm - 17.45 pm

A New Vision on Relationships: NVR within an integrated approach to working with Attachment

In Southampton we have been using Non Violent Resistance (or, as our parent mentors re-named it; a New Vision on Relationships) since 2008. It is fully integrated within the practice of our multi-agency team, which workstherapeutically with attachment (children and families within care, adoption and edge of care systems).

How we have developed NVR in our setting has been to incorporate key elements of our core attachment-focussed practice, notably Dyadic Developmental Psychology (DDP) developed by Dan Hughes and Kim Golding. Our attached article, published in the special NVR focussed edition of Context journal, explains how we went about this and how NVR in turn enhanced the attachment work within our service.

In our workshop we would love to show how NVR has dovetailed with our use of Hughes’ PACE model (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy). We would demonstrate how this, together with associated elements of mindfulness and brain-based parenting models, can be used to enhance mentalizing capacity and so increase adult presence and maintain de-escalated interaction. Hand in hand with this, intensified relational gestures nurture the ‘repair’ element of NVR.

We would show how when inter-subjectivity is created/restored in this way, children and young people reply with their own relational gestures. Most recently we have overseen the application of ‘NVR in reverse’ whereby the young people have been successfully enabled, through using the same approaches, to manage their responses to their parents and promote the rebuilding of relationships.

In our workshop we would show how we practice NVR through role play demonstration, opportunities for interaction, handout materials and video clips.

We hope you enjoy reading our article and we look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in Malmoe.

Price for the day incl lovely lunch buffet and coffebreaks - 190 euros (152 euros + swedish vat)