Meeting of Minds

After Ballymena Academy and undergraduate medical studies at The Queen's University of Belfast John had a joint appointment with the hospital and with the university as a Senior Tutor and later Hon Senior Lecturer in psychiatry. During the years of active political engagement he was able to build up many clinical and academic relationships with colleagues not only in the UK and Ireland, but across Europe, in the Americas and in South Asia.

When John retired from clinical psychiatric practice in 2010, he left behind those university attachments which were more clinically focussed, but felt the need for an academic home where he could continue and indeed focus his interest on understanding how and why individuals and groups of people fall into ways of thinking and behaving that lead to apparently intractable conflict. Growing up in Northern Ireland during 'The Troubles' John kept asking himself why it can be so difficult for communities to think in different ways and espouse different values without falling into aggression and even physical violence that serves neither their own best interests nor the fundamental need for relationships?

As Leader of Northern Ireland's cross-community Alliance Party, John (now Lord) Alderdice played a significant role in the negotiation of the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement which brought Northern Ireland's thirty year 'Troubles' to an end.

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Graham Music is Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics in London and an adult psychotherapist in private practice. At the Tavistock Clinic he leads in teaching on attachment, the brain and child development, organises training for therapists and other professionals and teaches and supervises on a range of psychotherapy training in Britain and abroad. He currently works clinically at the Portman Clinic in forensic psychotherapy and has worked for two decades with the aftermath of abuse and neglect. He is author of two books; Nurturing Natures: Attachment & Children’s Emotional, Sociocultural and Brain Development and more recently The Good Life (2014).

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Dr. Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist, group analyst and mindfulness based cognitive therapist. She has a Master’s Degree in Medical Law & Ethics and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She has worked in forensic services for over 20 years; mainly in Broadmoor high secure hospital, and more recently in a medium secure service. She has a long standing interest in attachment theory applied to forensic practice, and in moral reasoning in antisocial people.

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Formerly an NHS psychiatrist, Mario Marrone is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist with a private practice in London. He is co-founder of the International Attachment Network and the journal Attachment and Human Development and a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society and the Association of Independent Psychoanalysts. He has also trained in group analysis and psychodrama. Mario Marrone received regular clinical supervision from John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, over a period of ten years, from 1980 until shortly before Bowlby’s death in 1990. He has lectured internationally on attachment theory and related subjects.

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