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Detailed professional description

The reflective parent and adolescent groups are not personal-development groups. They are not intended for exploring individual personal difficulties or current life events; however, experiences arising in the group can usefully be discussed in individual, group or family therapy.

As human beings we are embedded in relationships, and the quality of these relationships has a major influence on mental health. Improving our capacity to mentalise therefore supports healthier relationship functioning and can also improve emotional regulation.

During the reflective group sessions, concepts are illustrated through practical examples. Participants' own experiences can support understanding, and homework is also given. These tasks are generally practice-based rather than written assignments.

Active participation is expected because the group works with participants' own examples. Although the group is not contracted to process personal difficulties in depth, members inevitably share some insight into their own challenges and discoveries. Confidentiality therefore applies not only to the therapists but to all participants.

The aim of the Reflective Parent Group is to support parents and adolescents in developing mentalisation: the capacity to understand their own and other people's mental states, emotions and intentions. Improved mentalisation is central to healthier relationships and better emotional regulation, both of which are important for maintaining mental health.

The group follows the approach of the Anna Freud Centre's Lighthouse programme. It is not a traditional personal-development group, but a supportive space in which participants learn about mentalisation through practical, problem-focused themes.

Participation: attendance at all eight sessions is required. After the first session, parents receive educational material and have six weeks to work through it.

Programme themes: the group works through approximately 10–13 experiential situations to help parents understand mentalisation and relationship patterns. Core themes include:

• Sensations and emotions: learning to recognise and distinguish bodily sensations and emotions.
• Attachment: understanding the role of attachment patterns in family dynamics.
• Mentalisation and breakdowns in mentalising: how we interpret our own and other people's intentions, and what happens when this capacity is impaired.
• Attention: developing attentive, active listening as a foundation for effective communication.
• Window of tolerance and trigger points: recognising emotional limits and the 'red buttons' that can push us out of balance.
• Emotion regulation: practical methods for managing emotions.
• Parenting map and internal family patterns: understanding the parental role through one's own family patterns.
• Emotional thermometer and validation: tools for recognising and accepting an adolescent's emotional state.
• Coping cards and the parental safety net: practical exercises for managing stress and difficult situations.

On request, the group can place additional focus on parents of adolescents who self-harm, helping them understand what may be happening for the young person and how to offer support during difficult periods.

Group leader: Erika Pap – clinical psychologist, symbol therapist and MBT-A therapist.

Detailed professional description

As part of the MBT-I programme (Mentalization-Based Treatment information/education block), and drawing on the approach of the Anna Freud Centre, we offer parents a specialist educational training programme to help them better understand and support their adolescent children when facing mental-health difficulties.

The training consists of three sessions. Parents learn about mental states associated with an increased risk of self-harm and extreme behavioural responses. Through practical, problem-focused sessions, they acquire concrete techniques and tools that can help them support their child more effectively in difficult situations.

Theoretical themes include:

• Sensations and emotions: recognising and distinguishing internal states.
• Attachment: understanding the role of attachment patterns in family dynamics.
• Mentalisation and breakdowns in mentalising: how we interpret our own and other people's intentions, and what happens when this capacity becomes impaired.
• Window of tolerance and trigger points: recognising personal emotional limits and the 'red buttons' that can push us out of balance.
• Emotion regulation: practical methods that support the management of emotions.
• Coping cards: practical tools for managing stress and difficult situations.

If participating parents are caring for a young person who self-harms, the training also places specific emphasis on understanding what may be happening in the adolescent at moments of self-harm, when suicidal thoughts may arise, and how these warning signs can be recognised.

Where there is a need, an additional session can be organised in which parents practise how to remain supportively present with their child during a self-harm crisis. Parents who wish to continue after the three-session block can join the Reflective Parent Group, where the knowledge is developed further in a more practice-oriented format.

The programme offers a supportive environment in which parents can practise effective communication and problem-solving through individual and group-based exercises, helping to strengthen family relationships and support their child's mental health.

Attendance at all three sessions is required.

Group leader: Erika Pap – clinical psychologist, symbol therapist and MBT-A therapist.

Detailed professional description

During the transition through adolescence, we think together about change, rules and boundaries, freedom, bodily experience, our emotional world and our experiences in groups and communities.

Format: a therapeutically heterogeneous group in both age and presenting difficulties.

Focus: child and adolescent psychiatric difficulties. The group may support young people with psychosomatic symptoms without an identified organic cause, autism spectrum conditions, mood disorders, difficulties in personality development, eating disorders, attention and behavioural difficulties, and other anxiety disorders, including those who have recently left inpatient child psychiatric care and need stable, long-term therapeutic support.

For these young people, therapeutic progress often requires giving external form to pain and distressing emotions so that these experiences can be faced, spoken about and shared. Visual artwork can often represent unusual or frightening internal experiences more effectively than verbal communication. Verbalising, interpreting and mentalising what has been created deepens the psychological work.

Methodology: an integrative approach combining music therapy and visual art therapy within a complex treatment system.

Frequency: once a week in a slow-open group format. If a stable group is formed at the outset, it may remain closed until the end of the programme.

Group leaders: Erika Pap and Petra Kovács.

Group size: minimum 6, maximum 8 participants.

Age group: 15–16 years. Participation is available only through the Lotilko Programme. Enquiries: lotilkoadmin@murmo.hu.

Detailed professional description

Format: therapeutic group.

Focus: lack of peer relationships, adjustment and communication difficulties, challenges with mentalisation, low self-esteem, anxiety, school conflicts including bullying, questions of identity in relation to diagnosis, separation from parents, increasing independence, uncertainty about the future, inflexibility and compulsive patterns.

Methodology: the group combines Mentalization-Based Treatment for Adolescents (MBT-A), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and complex art-therapy methods while following professional guidance relevant to autism spectrum conditions. The therapeutic framework supports appropriate emotional expression and a better understanding of behavioural and relationship patterns.

Our aim is for the strengthening and positive experiences gained in the safe environment of the therapeutic group to help members function more independently and flexibly in everyday situations appropriate to their age. As a transfer effect, the work also aims to strengthen motivation and self-confidence. The group is co-led by a clinical psychologist and a complex art therapist.

The therapeutic process is based on continuous active participation, shared experiences, connection and feedback within the group. As in individual therapy, regular weekly attendance is therefore essential to achieving a therapeutic effect.

Intensive parental guidance is also part of the programme throughout the school year. Approximately every ten group sessions, consultations are held with parents and the young person. These meetings provide an opportunity to think together about the young person's development and about changes in the difficulties discussed at the initial consultation, taking into account experiences at home, in educational settings and among peers. Our experience is that, within the slow weekly rhythm of the group, meaningful change often becomes visible by the end of the school year.

Parents undertake to complete any additional assessments recommended by the group leaders in order to support the effectiveness of therapy. Therapists undertake to indicate when they consider further diagnostic or therapeutic interventions necessary.

Frequency: once a week, two therapeutic hours (2 × 45 minutes = 90 minutes), in a slow-open group format.

Group leaders: Erika Pap – clinical psychologist, symbol therapist and MBT-A therapist; Petra Kovács – complex art therapist and music therapist.

Maximum group size: 8 participants.

Age group: 14–18 years.

The therapeutic work is supported by regular child-psychiatric supervision within Murmo's multidisciplinary professional team.

The work of Murmo's therapeutic groups is supported throughout the year by volunteers from the Pro Juventa Foundation. Our volunteers are psychologists, special educational needs professionals and art therapists in training.

Detailed professional description

The PUMA group is a small-group therapeutic programme integrating visual art therapy, music therapy and play-therapy elements.

Age group: children aged 10–12.

Focus: impulse-control difficulties, performance anxiety, adjustment difficulties, attention problems, distractibility, low self-confidence, withdrawal, sleep and eating difficulties, problematic digital-device use, family crisis and trauma.

Methodology: integrated use of visual art, music and play-therapy elements. In a safe, experience-based art-therapy setting, we support self-expression, emotional regulation and the development of adaptive coping strategies.

How the group works:

• Therapeutic group running weekly throughout the school year.
• 50-minute thematic sessions tailored to the children's developmental and emotional needs.
• Slow-open group, minimum 4 and maximum 6 participants.
• Five parent consultations per school year.
• Regular attendance and completion of any recommended further assessments are required.

Group leader: Petra Kovács – complex art therapist, music therapist and RGM Master Therapist.

Detailed professional description

The NAGYMACSKA group is a small-group therapeutic programme integrating visual art therapy, music therapy and play-therapy elements.

Age group: children aged 9–10.

Focus: impulse-control difficulties, performance anxiety, adjustment difficulties, attention problems, distractibility, low self-confidence, withdrawal, sleep and eating difficulties, problematic digital-device use, family crisis and trauma.

Methodology: integrated use of visual art, music and play-therapy elements. In a safe, experience-based art-therapy setting, we support self-expression, emotional regulation and the development of adaptive coping strategies.

How the group works:

• Therapeutic group running weekly throughout the school year.
• 50-minute thematic sessions tailored to the children's developmental and emotional needs.
• Slow-open group, minimum 6 and maximum 8 participants.
• Five parent consultations per school year.
• Regular attendance and completion of any recommended further assessments are required.

Group leader: Petra Kovács – complex art therapist, music therapist and RGM Master Therapist.

Detailed professional description

The KISMACSKA group is a small-group therapeutic programme for younger primary-school children integrating visual art therapy, music therapy and play-therapy tools.

Age group: children aged 6–8.

Focus: impulse-control difficulties, anxiety, social inhibition, aggressive behaviour, family crisis, trauma, eating and sleep difficulties.

Methodology: an integrated combination of visual art, music and play-therapy elements. Stories, imagination, movement, musical improvisation and complex art-therapy tools are used to support emotional processing, self-expression and the development of social and communication skills.

How the group works:

• Therapeutic group running weekly throughout the school year.
• 50-minute thematic sessions tailored to the children's developmental and emotional needs.
• Slow-open group, minimum 5 and maximum 8 participants.
• Five parent consultations per school year.
• Regular attendance and completion of any necessary assessments are essential for effective therapeutic work.

Group leader: Petra Kovács – complex art therapist, music therapist and RGM Master Therapist.

Detailed professional description

We welcome adults who would like to improve or maintain their quality of life by developing the following areas:

• attention, concentration and memory;
• balance, coordination and spatial orientation;
• organisation and integration of movement;
• divided attention and carrying out parallel tasks;
• planning, organisation and sequential task performance;
• flexibility of routines and situational awareness;
• speed of task performance.

Therapeutic sessions use the Ronnie Gardiner Method (RGM) with both rehabilitation and prevention goals. Participants learn specific choreographies performed to music, designed to develop motor and cognitive abilities, memory and concentration. Music and rhythm also support motivation and sustained co-operation throughout the therapeutic work.

Practising RGM choreographies is an enjoyable and engaging challenge. The exercises train areas and connections within the nervous system that are also important in complex everyday tasks. Perceiving and processing stimuli, planning and organising movement, carrying out actions and synchronising them all support more balanced nervous-system functioning and can contribute to more flexible and successful problem-solving in daily life.

The movements are not physically strenuous. The exercises activate the nervous system as a whole and can have an energising effect. Safe performance of the exercises is discussed with each participant according to individual needs.

Session length: 80 minutes.

Participants can attend in comfortable everyday clothing.

Group leader: Petra Kovács – RGM trainer and Master Therapist.