Inside the Consulting Room: The Hidden Skills of Child Psychotherapy

In this short clip, from our training series The Craft of Child Psychotherapy: Foundations in Practice, child psychotherapist Peter Blake, in conversation with Jane O’Rourke, explores the often unseen art of holding parents in the therapeutic process.

Parents often arrive at the end of their tether, exhausted, anxious, and unsure what to do next. Peter describes how helping parents feel understood and included allows the therapy to move forward in powerful ways.

He invites us to think about the delicate balance between supporting the child and containing the parents, one of the “hidden skills” that makes psychotherapy work in practice.

Why this training matters

So often psychotherapy training emphasises theory but omits to explore the craft of clinical work. Yet it is the practical details that often decide whether therapy flourishes or falters; how and when we engage parents, conduct assessments, set up the consulting room, as well as our ability to utilise play as a pathway into a child’s inner world.

This live session shines a light on those often overlooked, yet foundational skills. In conversation with Jane O’Rourke, Peter Blake offers guidance that is clear, usable and grounded in decades of experience as a clinician, supervisor and trainer.

Who this Event is for

This event is designed for early- to mid-career clinicians, trainees, and practitioners from other modalities who want to deepen their work with children. It will also benefit experienced therapists seeking a refresher in the practical craft of child psychotherapy practice.

The foundation of this training

Peter’s teaching draws on decades of clinical experience through which he has honed a clinical approach that is full of depth whilst remaining practical. His approach is underpinned by classical psychoanalytic ideas alongside modern developments in therapeutic practice, yet always kept relevant to the realities of today’s consulting room.

Rather than abstract theory, he offers a way of thinking that helps clinicians understand children’s inner worlds and internal experiences while giving them practical tools they can apply straight away.

What you will learn

By attending you will:

• Gain a framework for interviewing and working with parents so difficult conversations can be held with confidence
• Learn how to emotionally assess a child using Peter’s five-session model for short-term psychotherapy
• Develop confidence in setting up your consulting room and choosing toys and materials that support therapeutic play
• Understand how to use play as the main pathway into a child’s inner world, without over-reliance on interpretation
• Strengthen your capacity to make everyday clinical decisions and trust your intuition, the skills that rarely appear in textbooks but make therapy effective

All participants receive the full recording of the session (2 CPD/CE hours).

About Peter Blake

Peter Blake trained at the Tavistock Clinic in London and is Director of the Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Sydney.

He is the author of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Making the Conscious Unconscious, now in its third edition and widely used worldwide. Dr Anne Alvarez has described it as “an original and exciting description of child psychotherapy at its best and a masterly contribution to the literature.”

Renowned for making complex psychoanalytic ideas accessible and practical, Peter bridges the theories of Klein, Winnicott and Bion with the everyday realities of today’s consulting room. With over fifty years of practice, supervision and teaching, he is widely regarded as a master clinician.

Practical details

Date/Time: Thursday 20 November 2025, 7:30–9:30pm UK | 2:30–4:30pm ET | 6:30–8:30am Sydney (21 Nov)
Format: Live online event with recording included
CPD/CE: 2 hours

Special offer

This is the only live session before the release of Peter’s forthcoming training series with MINDinMIND, The Craft of Child Psychotherapy: Foundations in Practice. The complete series, more than 15 hours of video training, is available to pre-order here: https://mindinmind.org.uk/recordings/the-craft-of-child-psychotherapy/.

If you purchase a ticket for this event, your fee will be fully refunded when you buy the complete series. All attendees will be notified as soon as the series is available to watch, so you won’t miss out.

About MINDinMIND

MINDinMIND events offer distinctive conversations with leaders in psychology and psychotherapy, weaving together professional insight with the personal stories behind their life’s work. Founded by Jane O’Rourke, psychotherapist and former BBC producer, our Legacy Interviews create thoughtful and moving explorations of the lives and ideas shaping our field. In this conversational format, ideas unfold in real time, often in surprising and deeply engaging ways, offering audiences a rare opportunity to listen in on exchanges with some of the most influential figures in psychology and psychotherapy.

The event will be hosted by Jane O’Rourke.

She creates rich, multi-layered conversations through carefully crafted live interviews with luminaries such as Arietta Slade, Anne Alvarez, Alicia Lieberman, Beatrice Beebe, Patrick Casement, and Miriam Steele. MINDinMIND’s in-depth approach helps to create a special feel to our live events, producing original, thoughtful and at times deeply moving conversations with our visionary legacy interviewees. We deepen these conversations with the inclusion of special guests chosen by our interviewees for the support or inspiration they have offered over their careers, creating a rich, multi-faceted exploration of their work and ideas—bringing to life not just the clinical work but the person behind it as well.

Event Timezones

MINDinMIND has no income stream, and we depend on donations and ticket sales to keep putting out content like our Legacy Interviews.

Please do get in touch if you are living and working in a Low Income country as we have special discount codes available.

If you are experiencing financial hardship and wish to attend we have a number of sponsored tickets:

contact@mindinmind.org.uk

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