Conference Directors

Jane G. Tillman, PhD, ABPP, is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute, where she works to develop existing and new programs to support psychoanalytic education, training, scholarship, research, interdisciplinary studies, and advocacy that contribute to knowledge about human development across the lifespan and the ways identity is shaped in various sociocultural and historical contexts. Developing Riggs’ institutional archives and specialty library to contribute to scholarly research is also a significant aspect of the Erikson Institute. Applying the clinical learning available at the Austen Riggs Center to larger social contexts and problems in order to contribute to our local community and beyond by improving access to mental health care, addressing issues of stigma, collaborative care, and suicide prevention are all aspects of the Erikson Institute. As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Tillman treats patients at the Center. And, as a researcher, she is interested in suicide prevention and post-vention.

Linda Mayes, MD, is the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology and Director of the Yale Child Study Center. She is also Special Advisor to the Dean in the Yale School of Medicine. Trained as a pediatrician, Dr. Mayes’s research focuses on stress-response and regulatory mechanisms in young children at both biological and psychosocial risk. She has especially focused on the impact of prenatal substance use on children’s long-term outcomes. She has made contributions to understanding the mechanisms of effect of prenatal stimulant exposure on the ontogeny of arousal regulatory systems and the relation between dysfunctional emotional regulation and impaired prefrontal cortical function in young children. She has published widely in the developmental psychology, pediatrics, and child psychiatry literature.

Presenters 

Holly Dwyer Hall, PsyD, is the current lead for Mentalization-Based Treatments for children and young people at Anna Freud, where she also lectures on the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and the Early Child Development and Clinical Applications MSc at UCL. She is a registered child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Dynamic Interpersonal Therapist, Arts Psychotherapist, and a qualified Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) practitioner, supervisor, and trainer with children, adolescents, and families, and MBT practitioner with adults. Her clinical work spans 26 years across child and adult services in the UK’s National Health Service, social care, education and the private sector. This includes working within a service for adults with a diagnosis of EUPD and establishing a community-based emotional well-being service for under-fives and their parents. She currently provides assessment and treatment for children, young people, and families who have experienced early complex trauma in the clinical division of Anna Freud.

Nancy Close, PhD, is the associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center. She specializes in the assessment and treatment of children from birth to 5. She is the clinical director of the Parent and Family Development Program–a mental health clinic for parents. She teaches developmental psychology to Yale undergraduates and trains pre and postdoctoral fellows in psychiatry, psychology, and social work in assessment and treatment of young children.

Michael B. Hager, PhD, is the postdoctoral early childhood psychology fellow at the Yale Child Study Center, where he specializes in the assessment and treatment of children ages birth-5. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology and master's in general psychology at the New School for Social Research, and he received a bachelor's degree in liberal arts at the New School for Public Engagement. During his graduate training, he completed a predoctoral internship in clinical psychology at the Yale Child Study Center as well as clinical externships at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (School-Based Therapy Program), The New School Student Health Services (Counseling Center), Montefiore Medical Center (Group Attachment-Based Intervention), and Lenox Hill Hospital (Center for Attention and Learning). His doctoral research work focused on the development and psychometric testing of a novel observational measure of parental reflective functioning and sensitivity, titled the Parent Rearing Coding System (PRCS). He has also held positions as a senior research assistant at the Center for Attachment Research and a research consultant at Nurse-Family Partnership/Child First's Center for Prevention and Early Trauma Treatment.

Dan Knauss, PsyD, is the director of training, a staff psychologist, and vice-chair of the Institutional Review Board at the Austen Riggs Center. He holds interests in infant mental health, epistemic trust in systems of care, and mentalization informed approaches to treatment. Dr. Knauss is board certified in psychoanalysis and is active in organizations promoting psychoanalytic thinking and approaches to treatment. He serves on the boards of the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education, Inc., the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology, and as a Member at Large on the board for The Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology, Division 39, of the American Psychological Association. In addition, he serves on the Editorial Board for Psychoanalytic Psychology and formerly served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is passionate about psychoanalytic education and supervision.

Norka Malberg, PsyD, is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist living and working in Barcelona, Spain. She is a board-certified child psychoanalyst and adult psychoanalyst and a member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society and the Spanish Psychoanalytic Society.  Dr. Malberg is an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, a clinical tutor at the Anna Freud Centre in London and Professor at the Instituto Universitario de la Fundación Vidal y Barraquer / Ramon Llull University, Barcelona. She is the director of IMAGINA: Centro de Aplicaciones de la Mentalización, a teaching center out of Barcelona, Spain providing teaching and supervision to Spain and Latin America. Dr. Malberg has published widely on attachment, relational trauma and mentalization. She is the co-author of Mentalization Based Therapy for Children, Working with Parents from a Mentalization Perspective Working with Emotion in Psychotherapy and the upcoming book Mentalization Based Therapy for Children in the Autistic Spectrum. 

Megan Kolano, PsyD, is a staff psychologist, assistant team leader, and faculty member at the Austen Riggs Center. Dr. Kolano has worked clinically in a variety of contexts including correctional centers, community-based residential settings, psychiatric hospitals, psychoanalytic institutes, and outpatient private practices. Dr. Kolano enjoys writing, teaching and has taught courses related to psychological testing and psychoanalytic theory and practice. She has presented professionally on subjects such as schizophrenia, psychosis and spiritual experiences, object-relating and subject-relating in adolescent texting, working psychoanalytically with individuals with developmental disabilities, and humor and horror in teaching the Rorschach. She also maintains a private practice where she treats adults, adolescents, and children.