ABSTRACT
The third chapter of the guidebook to Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT) focuses on how MERIT uses the term “metacognition.” Metacognition, a construct broadly used over 35 years, has been adopted by a multitude of fields and has come to describe larger processes in which information is integrated into representations of the self and others. MERIT stresses the representational nature of thinking and that our ideas about ourselves and others are a construction rather than a mirror of reality. Metacognition is thus more of a matter of integration rather than capturing a pure and correct perception. It encompasses a broad spectrum of mental activities, which include the awareness of discrete and highly specific mental experiences and the integration of those discrete experiences into a larger sense of self and others. Metacognition can differ in terms of whether it is focused on the self, others, or the use of that knowledge to respond to challenges. Metacognition is stressed as a capacity that is necessary for survival, which is necessarily intersubjective in nature. Persons furthermore can have deficits in metacognition for a range of different reasons. The term “metacognition” is contrasted with the terms “social cognition” and “mentalization.”
