Pia Tohme

Biography

I have graduated with a Ph.D. from University College London, investigating parental mentalizing capacities with regards to their adolescent identical twins and its effects on attachment security.

I am trained in the Approach to Parenting Teenagers from the Open Door Young People’s consultation services and in Mentalization Based Therapy for Children and Adolescents, as well as its application in a school setting, from the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, London. I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Lebanese American University and work in private practice with children, adolescents and their parents, based on attachment and mentalizing principles. I am also a preschool consultant psychotherapist and am involved in the setting up of fun and accessible activities for toddlers and preschoolers, focusing on emotion expression and emotion regulation. I regularly give parenting workshops discussing creative hands-on ideas promoting healthy development throughout childhood and communication skills in adolescence. I also volunteer in various NGOs working with children in need.

My main research interests focus on the cross-cultural application of the construct of attachment in Lebanon, as well as the role played by mentalizing in our culture, in promoting healthy development from infancy through to adolescence. I conduct research at Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf, focusing on theory of mind in young children and mentalizing in adolescents with hearing difficulties. I am currently part of a team of researchers investigating the parent-child bond prenatally, and its impact on attachment postpartum as well as child adjustment in the first year of life.