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Interviewing leaders
in mental health
Interviewing leaders in mental health
Dr Amanda Jones Legacy Interview
Pioneering insights into perinatal mental health and parent–infant psychotherapy
Access the recording + resources + 2 hour CE/CPD certificate for £39
“The baby is as much a part of the therapeutic process as the parent. This may seem a strange way to put it, but you are treating the baby as a patient too alongside the adult parent. You bring that relationship into the room, and as you do, what often starts to unfold are the conflicts and difficulties, as well as the hopes and aspirations the parent may hold. The baby brings their own communications. Babies can’t lie; they let you know what they are struggling with.” – Amanda Jones
With Special Guests
Angela Joyce & Michela Biseo
Introduction to Dr Amanda Jones – Perinatal Psychotherapist and Innovator
This Legacy Interview celebrates the career and continuing influence of Dr Amanda Jones, a leading perinatal psychotherapist whose integrative and original thinking combines psychoanalytic, systemic and attachment perspectives with an acute awareness of social context. Her emotional presence and deep respect for parents and babies have shaped the field of perinatal mental health internationally.
Amanda’s work is distinctive for combining clinical precision with human warmth. Whether leading a multi-professional community service, contributing to national policy, or working moment to moment with a parent and baby, she holds in mind the needs of both patient-partners in the relationship, the adult and the infant.
Drawing on Daniel Stern’s idea that the parent–baby relationship itself is “the new patient”, Amanda treats babies as patients in their own right, with their communications forming a vital part of the clinical picture. Her doctoral research revealed how babies can stir forgotten feelings from a parent’s own infancy, triggering unconscious defensive processes that may interfere with protective love.
Her influence reaches far beyond the consulting room. Through teaching, supervision, the award-winning Channel 4 documentary Help Me Love My Baby, and her innovations in practice such as adapting Beatrice Beebe’s video-feedback techniques to reveal unconscious processes and “ghosts in the nursery”, she has brought the complexities and possibilities of parent–infant psychotherapy to professionals and the public alike.
Amanda is joined in this interview by close colleagues Angela Joyce and Michela Biseo, both leaders in parent–infant psychotherapy, who discuss the depth and breadth of her contribution.
Event Highlights – Working Therapeutically in Perinatal Mental Health
In this wide-ranging conversation, Amanda Jones shares the clinical frameworks, emotional stance and service models that have shaped her work in parent–infant psychotherapy, alongside personal reflections on the challenges of supporting parents and infants in distress.
Understanding the emotional terrain of early parenthood
- The precious and precarious nature of early caregiving and why it must become emotionally significant to the parent for secure attachment to develop.
- How parental projections and revived childhood feelings influence a baby’s emotional and developmental wellbeing.
Defensive processes in parent–infant psychotherapy
- Findings from Amanda’s doctoral research into common defensive processes in therapy with parents: denial, omnipotent control, projection, splitting, extreme withdrawal, and how these can shift rapidly.
- The parallel risk of therapists developing defensive reactions, and the value of supervision in maintaining reflective capacity.
- Balancing empathy for the parent with advocacy for the baby, ensuring the infant’s needs remain central to the work.
Clinical tools and frameworks for the perinatal psychotherapist
- Amanda Jones’ PARENTAL CARE Assessment Framework: assessing parental capacity from the baby’s perspective, structuring clinical reports, and creating a shared language across disciplines.
- Using video feedback and free association to deepen parental insight and uncover unconscious relational patterns.
- Applying Jaak Panksepp’s care system framework to understand and repair disruptions in caregiving.
Systemic and intergenerational perspectives in perinatal mental health
- The impact of poverty, racism, insecure housing and overstretched services on early relational development.
- Approaches to breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma through early and sustained parent–infant interventions.
Practice wisdom from a leading perinatal psychotherapist
- Preparing parents for endings in therapy to prevent reactivation of earlier losses.
- How humour and the natural vulnerability of babies can soften tension and inspire change.
- The role of multi-agency collaboration in building a protective network around high-risk families.
“I really value Amanda’s combination of analytical and systemic understandings turned into ordinary human language, and, as I experienced it watching her work, love in action.”
– Christiane Lieberman
About Dr Amanda Jones – Leader in Perinatal Mental Health and Parent–Infant Psychotherapy
Dr Amanda Jones is Consultant Perinatal Psychotherapist and Head of a multi-professional community Perinatal Parent–Infant Mental Health Service in London, UK. She advocates for publicly funded perinatal mental health services, recognising that emotional and relational challenges can emerge before or during pregnancy and often continue into the toddler years.
Her leadership is marked by the capacity for the often difficult task of holding in mind the perspectives of parents, babies and professionals simultaneously. This enables her to create services that are both clinically rigorous and deeply humane.
Internationally sought after as a teacher and supervisor, Amanda is widely respected for her ability to translate complex theory in parent–infant psychotherapy into clear, accessible language. She shares her expertise through professional training, conference presentations and widely broadcast documentaries, including the award-winning Help Me Love My Baby, which has brought the realities of early therapeutic intervention to a broader audience.
Special Guests
Angela Joyce
Training and Supervising Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Trained as a child analyst at the Anna Freud Centre, where she helped pioneer psychoanalytic work with infants and parents. Past Chair of the Winnicott Trust and Trustee of the Squiggle Foundation.
Michela Biseo
Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and Course Director for the Psychoanalytic Parent Infant Psychotherapy Training at the British Psychotherapy Foundation. Former Parent Infant Psychotherapy Lead at the Anna Freud Centre in London.
Interviewer
Amanda is in conversation with Jane O’Rourke.
Jane O'Rourke, founder of MINDinMIND and a former award-winning BBC journalist now practising as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, draws upon her combined expertise to create rich and thoughtful conversations with leading mental health clinicians. Her interviews weave together the personal and professional threads of her guests' journeys, capturing the experiences that have shaped their clinical work and thinking.
Details correct at time of recording. 15 November 2023
