People

Professor Nick Midgley, Director of ChAPTRe 

Nick Midgley is Professor of Psychological Therapies with Children and Young People at UCL, where he is Academic Director for the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. Among other projects, he is currently chief investigator on the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-funded Reflective Fostering Study, a clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of a mentalization based intervention for foster carers; as well as the Emotional Regulation in Children (ERiC) clinical trial, evaluating mentalization based treatment (MBT) for school-age children with emotional and behavioural problems referred to child and adolescent mental health services in the UK, funded by the Kavli Trust. 

Dr Michelle Sleed, Senior Research Fellow 

Michelle Sleed is a Senior Research Fellow in ChAPTRe and Deputy Programme Director of the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at Anna Freud/University College London. Her research is focused on evaluating preventative interventions for families, and particularly the role of parental mentalizing as a mechanism of change. She has carried out research evaluating the outcomes of psychoanalytic and mentalization based treatments for families experiencing complex difficulties, including interventions for parents in prison, parents with perinatal psychiatric difficulties, and families in the child welfare system. Dr Sleed is a trainer in various systems for coding the Parent Development Interview, including Parental Reflective Functioning and the Assessment of Representational Risk. She has used the measures extensively in clinical evaluations and therapy process research. Her research has also investigated and addressed issues of measurement of parental mentalization, particularly pre-mentalizing modes, in the assessment of relational trauma within the parent-child relationship. 

Dr Saul Hillman, Senior Research Fellow 

Saul Hillman is a Senior Research Fellow and Research Tutor at Anna Freud and is an Honorary Lecturer at University College London. He is the tutor for two University College London postgraduate programmes: the MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice (DPCP) and the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy where he both supervises and leads on specific projects. He is also the training lead for the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP) courses including managing accreditation, coding and consultation. Saul’s research areas are around adoption and looked-after children with a particular interest in attachment and mentalization. 

Dr Elizabeth Li, Research Fellow 

Elizabeth Li is a Module Lead, Module Co-Lead, Senior Course Tutor and Research Tutor at UCL and UCL–Anna Freud Postgraduate Studies. She was awarded her PhD with no corrections in Developmental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy from UCL, following a research exchange at Yale University. Her research focuses on early adversity, psychological mechanisms, and psychotherapy process and outcome, using qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and review approaches. Within the ChAPTRe group, Elizabeth is Co-Principal Investigator on a BACP-funded project exploring how epistemic mistrust and alliance ruptures contribute to dissatisfied dropout in adolescent psychotherapy. 

Dr Guilherme Fiorini, Research Officer 

Guilherme is a Research Officer at ChAPTRe and a Research Tutor at Anna Freud and Honorary Lecturer at University College London. He supervises the research projects of MSc students in two programmes at Anna Freud/UCL, namely Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice (DPCP) and Early Child Development and Clinical Applications (Early Dev). His main interest is in child and adolescent psychotherapy, and what factors contribute to differential outcomes.