Inaugural Lecture with Prof Miriam Steele

About the Lecture

Professor Miriam Steele will discuss how the ‘Mirror Interview’ has been applied to explore the intergenerational transmission of body representations from mothers to daughters and in clinical Professor Miriam Steele will discuss how the ‘Mirror Interview’ has been applied to explore the intergenerational transmission of body representations from mothers to daughters and in clinical work with adolescents with personality and eating disorders.

The presentation will highlight the clinical implications of body and attachment representations, offering valuable insights for practitioners working with body image concerns, attachment difficulties, and trauma.

We are particularly honoured to welcome Dr Bernadette Buhl-Nielsen as a special guest speaker, who co-developed the Mirror Interview technique and will provide insights into its clinical applications and latest developments.

Clinicians in the field will be invited to join in the discussion following the lecture, with additional time reserved for questions from attendees. Please email contact@mindinmind.org.uk to submit your questions in advance.

About Professor Miriam Steele

Transforming Understanding Through Research

As the Alfred J. and Monette C. Marrow Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York, Miriam Steele co-directs the Center For Attachment Research with her husband, Howard Steele. Her work links psychoanalytic thinking with robust clinical practice, creating evidence-based approaches to supporting vulnerable children and families.

Seminal Contributions

Miriam Steele’s most significant contributions include:

• Reflective Functioning: Thirty years ago, as a PhD student at the Anna Freud Centre, Miriam initiated the concept of ‘reflective functioning’, which radically challenged existing child psychotherapy models and underpins modern mentalization-based treatments.
• Attachment Research: Her research has provided evidence demonstrating how parental states of mind significantly impact children’s social and emotional development.
• Adoption and Foster Care: Miriam’s research has created hope for those caring for severely maltreated children by showing how secure attachment relationships with adoptive parents can transform developmental trajectories.
• Community-Based Interventions: Through her Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI) for vulnerable families in the Bronx in New YorkMiriam has brought psychodynamic practice into underserved communities.
• Attachment and Body Representation: Her current research includes the intergenerational transmission of body image from mothers to daughters and studies of body representations in individuals with physical disabilities. This work provides crucial insights into eating disorders and body image issues.

About Dr Bernadette Buhl-Nielsen

Dr Bernadette Buhl-Nielsen is a distinguished child and adolescent psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and academic whose work has contributed to the understanding of attachment, identity development and body image in young people. She is affiliated with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Region Sjælland and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Clinical and Academic Contributions

As a member of the Danish Psychoanalytic Association, Dr Buhl-Nielsen has been recognised for her leadership in child and adolescent mental health services. Her clinical approach integrates psychoanalytic theory with contemporary developmental and attachment research, offering nuanced insights into the treatment of complex personality development in youth.

Mirror Interview Development

Dr Buhl-Nielsen, along with Paulina Kernberg and Lina Normandin, pioneered the Mirror Interview technique—a groundbreaking assessment tool that provides unique insights into body image integration and self-representation. Her collaboration with Kernberg on the book “Beyond the Reflection: The Role of the Mirror Paradigm in Clinical Practice” examines the metaphorical and clinical significance of the mirror in psychoanalytic practice, particularly in relation to self-image and affect regulation in children and adolescents.

Her work on “Affect Regulation and Self Image as Seen in Mirror Behaviour” has been instrumental in understanding how the integration of body image and self-representation relates to personality development and psychopathology in adolescents.

The Mirror Interview technique reveals how subjects with personality disorders often display a disconnect between “self as seen” and “self as felt”—a clinical observation with profound implications for therapeutic intervention.

The MINDinMIND Masterclass Lecture Series

Explore the ever evolving landscape of mental health research and science through our Masterclass Lecture Series, featuring world-renowned clinicians and researchers at the forefront of the field.

These sessions are future-focused, exploring current challenges, new therapeutic approaches, and the latest evidence-based interventions in psychological care.

This series provides a unique opportunity to deepen clinical expertise, engage in critical discourse, and to be informed of the cutting edge of mental health theory and practice. Professor Miriam Steele’s inaugural lecture, with special guest Dr Bernadette Buhl-Nielsen, will establish the scholarly foundation for this innovative programme of professional development.

This event is suitable for psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, all mental health practitioners, researchers, and students interested in mentalization, attachment theory, psychoanalysis, body image, and trauma.

This lecture is eligible for 2 CPD/CEU hours.