Amy Banks
Senior Scholar
- M.D., Georgetown University
- abanks@wellesley[dot]edu
Amy Banks, M.D., has devoted her career to understanding the neurobiology of relationships. In addition to her work at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI), she was an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Four Ways to Click: Rewire Your Brain for Stronger, More Rewarding Relationships. She is the first person to bring relational-cultural theory together with neuroscience and is the foremost expert in the combined field. Banks has spoken throughout the country on the neurobiology of relationship and has an ongoing passion to spread the message that we are hardwired for connection
.Banks has a private practice in Lexington, MA, that specializes in relational psychopharmacology and therapy for people who suffer from chronic disconnection. She is also the creator of the C.A.R.E. Program, an easy to use, practical guide that helps clinicians and laypeople assess the quality of their relationships and strengthen their neural pathways for connection.
Banks co-edited The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women, published by Beacon Press in 2004. She has written numerous articles on the treatment of childhood trauma including a popular manual, “PTSD, Relationships and Brain Chemistry," published as a project report at the Stone Center, Wellesley College. Banks was a co-investigator of the National Lesbian Family Study, a 20+ year longitudinal study (led by principal investigator Nanette Gartrell, M.D.) and has co-authored numerous journal articles describing the findings.
Banks was the psychiatrist-in-charge of The Women’s Treatment Program, a residential and day treatment program at McLean Hospital based on relational-cultural theory; she was the team psychiatrist for the Victims of Violence Program at Cambridge Hospital; and she was Medical Director for Mental Health at the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, MA.
In 2011, she was the keynote speaker, alongside Daniel Siegal and Beth Hartman McGilley, on the topic “The Mind and the Relational Brain: The Next Integration” at the conference Feminist Relational Perspectives and Beyond. Banks is also a member of the core group of Harville Hendrix’s Relationships First, a small group of prestigious scientists and cultural leaders who promote the idea that “healthy relationships are non-negotiable in a healthy society.”
After graduating magna cum laude from Tufts University, Amy earned her medical degree at Georgetown University and continued her psychiatric training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, a Harvard residency program.
