Author biographies

Simonetta M.G. Adamo is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, member of the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists. Formerly Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Milan Bicocca, she has taught many courses based on the Tavistock model in Italy and co-organises the course ‘Working with disruptive adolescents’, held at the Tavistock Clinic. Her main areas of interest and research are infant and young child observation, psychotherapy of children with autistic disorders, counselling young people, psychoanalytically oriented work in paediatric wards, and the emotional aspects of teaching and learning relationships. She has published widely in international journals and has contributed to several books. She has also edited books on counselling young people, imaginary companions, and the psychodynamic approach to children with cancer. She has co-edited a book on work with disruptive adolescents with Gianna Williams.

Francesco Bisagni, a psychiatrist, was trained as a Jungian analyst in Italy. He completed his training as a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist following the Tavistock model at the Associazione Italiana di Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica Infantile, of which he was a full member from 1998 until 2005. He is presently a member of the Society of Analytical Psychology and an affiliate member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists in the UK. He is also a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in the United States and a training analyst and supervisor at the Centre for Studies in Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Milan, Italy. He has taught for many years both in Italy and abroad and he has had works published in Italian as well as in international journals. He is in private practice as a psychoanalyst and child psychotherapist in Milan.

Leslie Ironside completed his training as a child and adolescent psychotherapist in 1989 and completed his doctorate, which focused on work with traumatised childr