Adaptive Mentalization-Based Integrative Treatment (AMBIT) For People With Multiple Needs Applications in Practise

Meeting the complex needs of some of the most vulnerable populations in our society often involves the need for connected networks of care providing health, social care, educational and voluntary sector services. This presents major challenges for both clients and practitioners for this to work well. Adaptive mentalization based integrative treatment (AMBIT) has been developed over the last 15 years to address the needs of both clients and practitioners in trying to make this work well. The basic framework for AMBIT was set out by the authors in AMBIT: A Guide for Teams to Develop Systems of Care in 2017 but continues to evolve through collaboration with practitioners across the world who work with people (both young people and adults) for whom many current services are not experienced as helpful.

AMBIT for People with Multiple Needs: Applications in Practice describes the progress of this collaboration and shows how AMBIT has been applied in health, social care and education settings across the world. Contributors convey the detail of what it is like to apply AMBIT to their work by combining case illustrations with detailed descriptions of therapeutic practice and technique, along with inspiring and remarkable stories of therapeutic change. The chapters examine therapeutic casework in very different services providing community and residential based care with adults and young people across Europe and the UK.

With AMBIT constantly evolving, the book explores recent developments in the AMBIT model and provides rich new thinking about how "helping" services can be supported to provide meaningful help and change.

Peter Fuggle, AMBIT Consultant, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families,Laura Talbot, AMBIT Joint Programme Lead, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families,Chloe Campbell, Deputy Director of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London,Peter Fonagy, Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London,Dickon Bevington, Medical Director, Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families

Peter Fuggle PhD is a clinical psychologist who has worked in child mental health services for over thirty years. He was Clinical Director of a community based mental health service in London for 20 years and became concerned about young people with mental health needs who did not wish to attend mainstream services. His collaboration with Dickon Bevington at the Anna Freud Centre was a turning point of his career and resulted in the start of the AMBIT programme. He is now delighted to be part of a growing AMBIT team in London who together continue to evolve the approach.

Laura Talbot is a Clinical Psychologist who has specialised in working with adolescents and young adults in community outreach services since 2010. Laura has held clinical lead roles in multi-agency projects with MAC-UK and Brent Inclusion Services. Laura has been a trainer with the AMBIT Programme since 2015 and is now the AMBIT Joint Programme Lead.


Chloe Campbell is Deputy Director of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London. She was educated at Cambridge, LSE and SOAS. She is interested in pursuing the interdisciplinary implications of recent theoretical developments in the area of epistemic trust, culture and psychopathology.

Peter Fonagy is Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London and is Chief Executive of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Academy of Social Sciences and the American Association for Psychological Science, and was elected to Honorary Fellowship by the American College of Psychiatrists. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from several national and international professional associations including the British Psychological Society, the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorder, the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder, the World Association for Infant Mental Health and was in 2015 the first UK recipient of the Wiley Prize of the British Academy for Outstanding Achievements in Psychology by an international scholar.

Dickon Bevington is Medical Director at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. He is also a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS FT where he leads CASUS, an outreach service for complex substance-using youth, and he is also a Fellow of the Cambridge and Peterborough CLARHC.