ABSTRACT
Antony Bateman and Peter Fonagy describe various states of mind: modes or manners of experiencing psychic reality. Neither the psychic equivalent mode nor the pretend mode can make an optimal link between the inner world of the mind and the outer world of reality, each of them for different reasons: the psychic equivalent mode is too realistic, and the pretend mode too unrealistic. In normal development, the child integrates these two prementalizing modes to arrive at mentalization: mental states represent reality, but are not equated with reality. The teleological mode is a state of mind in which a person's intention is deduced from things that can only be observed using the five senses (sense of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste). The psychic equivalent mode may express itself in flashbacks, a sense of being overwhelmed, firm convictions, rigid ways of thinking, the ability to read other people's minds, no room for any alternative way of thinking.
