Children in Troubled Worlds was set up in 2002 to promote the work of
child psychotherapists and to highlight the contributions psychoanalytic
thinking can make to work with troubled children, adolescents and their
families. Three child psychotherapists working in the NHS in Oxfordshire,
Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire, namely Gerry Byrne, Ellie Roberts and Kate Carling founded this not-for-profit organisation.

From the outset the organizers sought to unite speakers from the analytic and child psychotherapy disciplines alongside authors and artists and this has led to remarkable and interesting dialogues both between papers and in the plenary. Previous guest authors include Philip Pullman (2002, author of His Dark Materials), Anthony Browne (2004, artist, illustrator, children's author and current Children’s Laureate), Michael Rosen, (2006, children’s author, poet, broadcaster, performer and former Children’s Laureate), Geraldine McCaughrean (2007, author of Peter Pan in Scarlet), and the poets Tom Paulin and Bernard O’Donoghue (2009).

Please click on conferences above in menu bar for links to all our
previous conferences.

GERRY BYRNE works in the NHS as a Consultant Nurse and Child
& Adolescent Psychotherapist and has a small private practice.
He is an honorary principal lecturer at Oxford Brookes University
and a tutor on the Psychoanalytic Infant Observation Course in Oxford. Alongside psychoanalysis and attachment, his interests include
Irish language, literature and music and children’s literature.

Publications
The Evocation of Mystery in the Art of Anthony Browne
In Plastow, J. (Ed.) The Story and the Self: Psychoanalysis
& Children’s Literature. Byrne, G. (2008)

Child Psychotherapy. In Stein, S. Stein J. and Haigh, R. (Eds)
Essentials of Psychotherapy. Byrne, G. (1999)

KATE CARLING was Head of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy in
Swindon Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services until retiring from the NHS in February 2008. She continues in private practice working with children, adolescents and adults. She has been a Tutor on the Tavistock Oxford MA course in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies since 1992. Prior to training as a Child Psychotherapist she was Head of Education at the Mulberry Bush School.

Published papers
Thomas looking for George a premature twin emerging from the effects of early trauma. Journal of Child Psychotherapy Vol. 29 No 3 2003 335-365

ELLIE ROBERTS works for the NHS as a Child and Adolescent
Psychotherapist and has a private practice working with adults.
She administers and teaches on the Psychoanalytic Infant Observation
Course in Oxford. She is also a teacher on the Psychoanalytic Observation Course in Bologna: Martha Harris School and Clinical Supervisor to Clinical Trainees in Child Psychotherapy in Bologna.
Her interests lie in art and literature and the crossovers to psychoanalytic theory.

Publications
Cold drops with the Milk. Infant Observation Journal 2000
Tsunami Boy in Development in Siblings, Routledge February 2009

MARGARET RUSTIN is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
and Head of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. She is an Honorary Affiliate of the British Psychoanalytic Society and a Child Analyst. She has co-edited Closely Observed Infants (1989), Psychotic States in Children (1997), Assessment in Child Psychotherapy (2000), Learning from Reflective Practice in Work with Children and Families and written jointly with her husband Michael, Narratives of Love and Loss, Studies
in Modern Children’s Fiction (2001, 2nd edition), and Mirror to Mature, Drama, Psychoanalysis and Society (2002) and of a three-part article on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, published in the Journal of Child Psychotherapy in 2003.
Margaret and Michael are currently working on another book
entitled Reading Klein.