Adaptive mentalization-based integrative treatment

Adaptive mentalization-based integrative treatment (AMBIT) is a novel adaptation[1] (by Dickon Bevington, Peter Fuggle, Liz Cracknell, Peter Fonagy, Eia Asen, Mary Target, Neil Dawson and Rabia Malik) of the theory of mentalization and practices of mentalization-based treatment to address the needs of chaotic, complex and multiply comorbid youth, via team-based (predominantly outreach) multimodal practices.

This name change was recognised in the recent book published by Oxford University Press [3] These practices, shaped by an eightfold principled therapeutic stance and using mentalization as the integrating framework, balance the development of a strong therapeutic attachment to a key worker with strong peer-to-peer relationships between workers that are designed counteract the potential for destabilizing effects from such intense work.

[4] Mentalization is applied and fostered explicitly in four directions in AMBIT: In addition, a range of manualized 'barefoot' adaptations of existing evidence-based treatment modalities are available to workers, but the approach also encourages the development of a culture of team-based reflection upon practice and outcomes, of learning, and of sharing.

[9] It is described in Chapter 42 of the 3rd edition of "Child Psychology and Psychiatry Frameworks for Clnical Training and Practice [10] and in a review by the Youth Justice Working Group (2012),[11] the Centre for Mental Health, 2010.

[14] AMBIT has been supported by grants from Comic Relief, the City Bridge Trust and the James Wentworth Stanley Memorial Fund.