The Embodiment of Our Future

Join Us for Our Upcoming Professional Programs!

PEMworks™ is pleased to invite you to join us for one or more of our international training programs, workshops, or lectures promoting positive child development.

Mentalizing the Body in Research and Clinical Practice: Parental Embodied Mentalizing Assessment (PEMA™) Anna Freud (Online)

WHERE: Online Training

IN COLLABORATION WITH: Anna Freud

WHEN:

Training One: January 26, 2026 — January 30, 2026

Training Two: June 1, 2026 — June 5, 2026

TRAINING TIME: 9-12:30pm Daily (GMT)

PRESENTERS: Dr Dana Shai, the creator of PEM™ and PEMI™, and Dr Rose Spencer

OVERVIEW:

PEMworks™ promotes positive child development through the facilitation of clinical assessment and intervention programs based on the full-body, nonverbal relationship between parent and child.

PEMworks™ is backed by over a decade of empirical research. Drawing from this evidence-base, this 5-day course orients professionals working with parents and infants to using the Parental Embodied Mentalizing Intervention (PEMI™) in their clinical work.

PEMI™ assesses nonverbal risk and protective factors in parent-infant (0.5-2 years) dyads. The training is accompanied with video examples as well as experiential means to explore key features of parent-infant nonverbal communication and relational risk and protective factors.

WHO IS THIS TRAINING FOR?

This training is suitable for professionals working with young children and their families including, but not limited to: 

• Psychologists 

• Psychotherapists 

• Social workers 

• Marriage and family therapists 

• Mental health counsellors 

• Outreach workers 

  
  

PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES:

• Introduce the theory and research behind Parental Embodied Mentalizing (PEM) from its developer, Dr. Dana Shai. 

• Explore and identify the theory and movement language underlying PEM. 

• Learn step-by-step processes to identify risk and protective factors in parent-child dyads. 

• Fulfil prerequisite requirements for Reflective Practice and PEMA™ Certification. 

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In the early years of life, much of a child’s communication and expression unfold in the space beyond words Parental Embodied Mentalizing Assessment (PEMA™) offers a unique observational approach to explore this embodied landscape, assessing the nonverbal risk and protective factors in parent-infant (0-2 years) dyads that shape a child's development.

Please explore our professional programs and training events below and see how you can get involved.

In the (K)now.

Over the past year, we’ve had the privilege of delivering four PEMA trainings around the world connecting with professionals, sharing ideas, and seeing the growing interest in embodied approaches to parent–infant work. As we move into the next academic term, we are pleased to share with you some recent updated and upcoming events.

Clinical Practice

We are currently collaborating with services and teams to implement PEMA and MBT practice in their service with parents and infants. Current services include a specialist early years service in the local authority, community perinatal mental health team and a team of psychologists working with parents and infants in Iceland.

If you would like to hear more about this work or to think how to develop your parent- infant practice and approaches in your teams, please get in touch.

Grant!

Investigating the Impact of War-Related Stressors on Mother-Infant Psychobiological Development from Pregnancy Through Childhood Investigators:

Dr. Shai Dana, Academic College of Tel-Aviv - Yaffo, Israel.

Prof. Borelli Jessica, University of California, Irvine, USA.

We received a prestigious Binational Science Foundation (BSF) grant to our study Investigating the Impact of War-Related Stressors on Mother-Infant Psychobiological Development from Pregnancy Through Childhood. This study will follow 250 mothers pregnant during the October 7th attacks in Israel to examine how war-related stress affects maternal and child health. It explores maternal mentalizing as a protective factor and aims to identify pathways of risk and resilience. Findings will inform interventions to support families facing war and adversity worldwide.

Recent Seminar

International Congress on Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children, Adolescents and Families

WHEN: 6th, 7th, 8 th Nov 2025

WHERE: Santiago, Chile

As Keynote speaker, Dana opened this international conference and was joined by other global experts on MBT who share their findings, reflections, and future perspectives on the prevention, promotion, and treatment of child and adolescent mental health. This international congress brought together contributions from mentalization-based theory (MBT) and attachment theory in the care of children, adolescents, families, and various social contexts. It will include perspectives from clinical and psychosocial practice as well as research.

Recent Seminar

On the 13th of November 2025 Rose presented How Relational Trauma is Born in Early Mother-Infant Interactions & Its Implications for Adult Psychotherapy at the Finnish Trauma Conference.

Rose will presented video clinical material that explored how embodied relational trauma manifests in the mother-infant non-verbal interactions. Through case vignettes Rose introduced aspects of Parental Embodied Mentalizing Assessment (PEMA; Shai, 2019), which is a 13-point assessment and intervention tool that captures embodied risk and protective factors of how mind is expressed through dyadic movement interactions. Rose also explored implications of trauma-focused parent-infant intervention and encourage participants to reflect on their own embodied countertransference in in therapeutic work in high-risk cases.

Advancing research, education,
and therapeutic innovation.

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