Tina Adkins

Tina Adkins, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor at the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing within the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin. She also directs the Sue Fairbanks Psychoanalytic Academy. Her career spans child welfare, attachment theory, and foster care interventions, with a focus on mentalization-based approaches.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Psychoanalytic Studies, University College London (UCL)
• MS in Developmental Psychoanalytic Psychology, UCL and Anna Freud Center
• MA in Counseling, Texas State University

Research Interests: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), foster parent training, reflective functioning assessment, and program evaluation. Her signature work, the Family Minds intervention, aims to improve foster parents’ mentalization skills through group psychoeducation. Current projects include validating the Reflective Functioning Five-Minute Speech Sample (RF-FMSS) and evaluating telehealth mental health support for care-experienced youth.

Grants & Projects:

• Fairbanks Psychoanalytic Research Collaboration – RCT of Family Minds Intervention (2022)
• Validation of the RF-FMSS (2022–Present)

Labs/Teams: Directs the Sue Fairbanks Psychoanalytic Academy, collaborating with child welfare professionals to translate psychoanalytic theory into clinical practice.