Robin Balbernie

Robin Balbernie is an infant mental health specialist and was the Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in Gloucestershire CAMHS. For many years, beginning with the Sure Start programme, he worked with the Children’s Centres in the county as clinical lead of ‘Secure Start’, providing a community infant mental health service. He was also involved with the Intensive Care Baby Unit at Gloucester Royal Hospital throughout his time in CAMHS as well as running regular supervision groups for Health Visitors. When PIP UK was being established, he was initially a Trustee and later became Clinical Director, helping to set up and then supporting specialised infant mental health teams across the country for over five years. 

His early interest in working with adopted children led him to the field of Infant Mental Health and the need for early preventative intervention that focussed on the relationship between caregivers and their babies when this is exposed to accumulative stressors from both the parent’s internal world and the wider family ecology. This work then became his main focus following a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship to look at related projects in America. 

He is currently on the Board of Mellow Parenting and the Association of Infant Mental Health. He has published papers in many journals, including the Infant Mental Health Journal, The British Journal of Psychotherapy, Family Law, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Attachment & Human Development, Young Minds, Nursery World, The International Journal of Birth & Parenting Education and the Journal of Child Psychotherapy.

Title: Child-Carer Attachment: Understanding the Language of Relationships

Attachment theory and research emphasises the lifelong importance of significant relationships. The pattern of our significant relationships has its starting point in the pre-verbal period and so, as part of  procedural memory, frequently just taken for granted. This presentation will provide a very brief overview of the main points of attachment theory, which will include how the  attachment relationship gradually develops through observable interactions between parent and child over the period of infancy. The different patterns of attachment related behaviour that a child may grow into in order to match the home emotional environment and the varied ways in which a parent might regularly respond to their distress will be described. This will include details of when the experiences of infancy may lead to the child becoming very confused about whether or not close relationships will be a source of security in the future.