Eszter Forgács

I am a psychologist and special education teacher. I completed my university studies at Eötvös Loránd University. I spent a decade in English-speaking countries, earning my MA in Music Therapy in Cambridge, England, and later passing the California licensing examination to become a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT). Alongside music therapy, my main methods include play therapy, EMDR, child psychodrama, and infant/child–parent psychotherapy. To complement trauma processing, I trained in working with parts within the Internal Family Systems framework and in attending to the body’s communication. I am currently training in Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT). In addition to my work as a psychologist, I teach meditation to children, parents, and colleagues as a co-founder of Online Family Meditation.

I gained my experience in child and adult psychiatry in England as a music therapist at the Croft Child and Family Psychiatric Unit in Cambridge, on the Adult Psychiatric Ward of Fulbourn Hospital and in adult community outpatient care. As a psychologist, I trained in the United States at San Francisco General Hospital, in the Infant-Parent Program (IPP) of the University of California, San Francisco, founded by Francis Shapiro, and in the parent–infant/child therapy (ECMH) unit of Children’s Hospital Oakland. There I worked in marginalised communities with disadvantaged, heavily traumatised families and young children as an analytically oriented, trauma-informed parent–child therapist, a preschool therapeutic companion (shadow) and a preschool psychologist, all in a multicultural setting and in several languages.

Play, the arts, and human connection are central to my therapeutic work. Using a trauma-informed approach, I help children and adults discover and strengthen their resources, express their experiences and emotions, understand their behaviour, and, when possible, process specific traumatic memories. We explore difficulties and strengths together in an accepting and compassionate atmosphere. Mentalization-based methods support this process by helping us map emotions and understand how they appear in ourselves and others. I consider the understanding and processing of parents’ experiences just as important as those of children. Neurobiological characteristics, transgenerational attachment patterns, and life events all influence parent–child connection and the child’s relationship with the wider world. I therefore aim to understand children in a nuanced way, within the context of their family and peers, and to support development through complex multidisciplinary care when needed. In individual therapy with adults and parents, I primarily use EMDR to reduce current distress, strengthen resources, and process traumatic experiences.

At MURMO I currently work mainly in individual therapy with children and adults. I also co-lead mentalization-based coping-skills groups for adolescents and art-therapy groups for parents.

In recent years I have participated in the Pro Juventa Foundation’s parent clubs as a speaker and facilitator.