January 2026
Pat Ogden Live Legacy Interview: The Body Holds the Story
For more than forty years, Pat Ogden has been reshaping how clinicians understand trauma a...
Interviewing leaders
in mental health
Interviewing leaders in mental health
Francine Conway Legacy Interview
Integrating Neuroscience and the Creative Arts in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
Access the recording + resources + 2 hour CE/CPD certificate for £39
“I was struck by your emphasis on compassion at all levels in your work. Compassion for the child with ADHD, compassion for the parents… As a supervisor, you bring that compassion to helping your students understand the inner world of not only these children, but in the case of parents of colour, particularly black parents, the fears that we all hold for our children.”
– Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology
Francine Conway
With Special Guests
Kirkland Vaughans, Nancy Boyd-Franklin & Karin Ensinck
This Legacy Interview offers an opportunity to learn from Dr Francine Conway, an outstanding clinician who has won awards for her achievements in the fields of ADHD, Black Mental Health and Diversity. In her position as Chancellor of Rutgers University, she is a visionary groundbreaker, imagining a better world for children and committed to driving social change.
Francine shares her remarkable journey from growing up in poverty in Guyana to becoming a leading figure in child clinical psychology. Her grandmother’s advocacy for her education—literally building her a bench so she could attend school—established a foundation of belonging and support that continues to inform her approach to leadership, clinical practice, and mentoring.
The conversation explores her pioneering work in understanding ADHD through a psychodynamic lens, challenging the purely neurobiological view and emphasising the importance of understanding children’s inner emotional lives. Francine’s book, ‘Cultivating Compassion for the ADHD Child: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of ADHD’, provides a framework for a more comprehensive approach to treatment.
The interview explores important clinical concepts including:
- Rethinking ADHD: Moving beyond viewing ADHD as simply a behavioural disorder to understanding the child’s emotional experience and relational world
- Mentalization-Based Treatment: The development of reflective capacity in both children and caregivers
- Compassion-Centred Approach: Working with both the child and the entire family system
- Cultural Sensitivity: Understanding how race, socioeconomic factors, and cultural context impact diagnosis and treatment
Her special guests discuss how her insights have transformed clinical practice, particularly in supporting children and families of colour, and share personal reflections on the professional and personal impact of her mentorship.
Special Guest Contributions
Dr Kirkland Vaughans, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with decades of experience engaging with marginalised young people and their families in New York, shares how he recognised Francine’s exceptional talent early in her career and became an important mentor. He emphasises how her focus on compassion has transformed the understanding of ADHD, moving away from clinical “name-calling” and towards seeing the child’s full humanity. He discusses how her work addresses the school-to-prison pipeline and the disproportionate impact of racial biases in diagnosis, particularly for Black boys.
Dr Nancy Boyd-Franklin, a distinguished professor of psychology and respected authority on ethnicity and family therapy, explores how Francine’s work has highlighted the fears that parents of colour experience for their children. She emphasises the importance of developing greater awareness and compassion not only for children and families but also for colleagues of colour who may feel isolated in academic and clinical settings. Their discussion highlights the importance of understanding family systems within cultural contexts and creating inclusive environments in higher education.
Professor Karin Ensink, a clinical psychologist and director of Mentalization Based Treatment Canada, discusses her collaboration with Francine on implementing mentalization-based treatment for children with ADHD. She shares insights about their work together in creating a focused formulation approach that helps children develop reflective capacity and tell their stories. Their discussion highlights how therapeutic change emerges through developing secure relationships that allow for exploration and the development of new configurations.
The Clinical Approach to ADHD
The conversation reveals Francine Conway’s transformative approach to ADHD treatment:
- Relational Focus: Understanding how ADHD disrupts relationships and using therapy to rebuild these connections
- Mentalization: Helping children develop the ability to understand their own and others’ mental states
- Perspective Taking: Working on the empathy deficit that often accompanies ADHD
- Reflective Capacity: Creating a pause between thought and action
- Cultural Context: Recognising how race and socioeconomic factors influence diagnosis and treatment
- Parental Support: Helping parents understand the inner life of their child rather than focusing solely on behaviour management
Dr Francine Conway
Leading expert on ADHD, Chancellor at Rutgers University, advocate for diversity and inclusion in mental health
Dr Francine Conway is Chancellor of Rutgers University, where she previously served as Dean of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. Her remarkable ascent from humble beginnings in Guyana to her position as a prominent child psychologist and academic leader reflects her dedication to opening doors and creating opportunities for others to follow.
Her groundbreaking work on ADHD challenges conventional views, emphasising the importance of understanding children’s inner emotional experiences rather than focusing solely on behavioural symptoms. Her approach integrates psychodynamic principles with an understanding of the impact of race, culture, and socioeconomic factors on diagnosis and treatment.
Through her clinical work, research, and leadership roles, Francine has advocated for compassion-centred approaches to working with children and families, particularly those from marginalised communities. Her collaboration with colleagues to develop the “ADHD Compassion Project” at Rutgers University represents an innovative integration of mentalization-based treatment for children with ADHD and their families.
As an academic leader, she has championed diversity, inclusion, and belonging, creating supportive environments where all students, particularly first-generation and students of colour, can thrive. Her work embodies the concept of creating a “beloved community” at Rutgers, transforming higher education into a place where everyone truly belongs and feels welcomed.
Special Guests
Dr Kirkland Vaughans
Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, authority on intergenerational trauma among African Americans
Dr Kirkland Vaughans is a senior adjunct at the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University in New York and a renowned authority on intergenerational trauma among African Americans, particularly Black boys. His decades of clinical experience working with marginalised youth in East New York, Brooklyn has deeply influenced Dr Conway’s understanding of the contextual factors affecting children’s mental health. As her mentor, he helped shape her approach to understanding children’s behaviour within broader social and historical contexts.
Dr Nancy Boyd-Franklin
Distinguished Professor of Psychology and expert on ethnicity and family therapy
Dr Nancy Boyd-Franklin is a distinguished professor of psychology at Rutgers University and was named Distinguished Psychologist of the Year by the Association of Black Psychologists. Her work on ethnicity and family therapy has provided important frameworks for understanding the therapeutic treatment of ethnically and culturally diverse families. She has been a significant influence on Dr Conway’s thinking about the fears that parents of colour experience for their children and the importance of cultural sensitivity in clinical practice.
Professor Karin Ensink
Clinical psychologist and director of Mentalization Based Treatment Canada
Professor Karin Ensink is a clinical psychologist and director of Mentalization Based Treatment Canada. She has developed Mentalization Based Treatment for Children alongside colleagues at the Anna Freud Centre in London. Her work on assessing mentalizing in young people through the Child and Adolescent Reflective Functioning Scale has provided important tools for Dr Conway’s research and clinical practice. Their collaboration on implementing mentalization-based treatment for children with ADHD represents an innovative approach to addressing the emotional and relational aspects of the condition.
Interviewer
Francine was 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 – 1 February 2022
Bibliography & Resources
Publications:
Books
- Conway, F. (2017). Cultivating Compassion for the ADHD Child: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of ADHD. Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield
Articles
- Conway, F., Lyon, S., Silber, M., Donath, S. (2019). Cultivating Compassion ADHD Project: A Mentalization Informed Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Approach. Journal of Infant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. DOI:10.1080/15289168.2019.1654271
- Conway, F. (2019) Clinical Challenges in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of ADHD Patients: A Commentary on Dr. Whitman’s Case Presentation, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 72:1, 94-98
- Conway, F. (2015), Current Research and Future Directions in Psychodynamic Treatment of ADHD: Is Empathy the Missing Link? Journal of Infant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 14, 280-287.
- Conway, F. (2014). The use of empathy and transference as interventions in psychotherapy with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder latency-aged boys. Psychotherapy. 51(1), 104-109.
- Conway, F. (2012). Psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment of ADHD: A practice review of the literature. Psychotherapy. 49(3). 404-417.
“Because in the story is the core pain. You’ve got to get to core pain underneath the defense, and the story will have the core pain. Greenberg says you cannot leave a place until you first arrived. In other words, you cannot get well until you first got to core pain.”
– Margot Sunderland
