Professor Peter Fonagy, PhD, FMedSci, FBA, OBE, is Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis and Head of the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at University College London; Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, London; and Consultant to the Child and Family Programme at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a Senior Investigator for the National Institute of Health Research and holds a visiting professorship at Harvard. He is a clinical psychologist and a training and supervising analyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society in child and adult analysis. He is also National Clinical Lead of the NHS Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies and Director of the UCLPartners Integrated Mental Health and Wellbeing Programme. His clinical interests center on issues of borderline psychopathology, violence, and early attachment relationships. His work attempts to integrate empirical research with psychoanalytic theory.
A major focus of Professor Fonagy’s research has been an innovative research-based dynamic therapeutic approach, called Mentalization-Based Treatment, which was developed in collaboration with a number of clinical sites both in this country and in the US. Professor Fonagy is also engaged in major collaborative programs exploring developmental psychopathology from an attachment–mentalization perspective. Another thread of his work involves UK research collaborations concerned with the effectiveness of psychosocial treatments. He has published over 400 papers and has authored or edited 17 books.