ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the capacity to mentalise develops, how to recognise poor mentalising in our patients and most importantly, how to restore mentalising to maximise the effectiveness of our interventions as therapists. Mentalising tends not to be included in texts on psychodynamic psychotherapy nor explicitly taught in psychodynamic and analytic psychotherapy trainings. Mentalising involves a creative mental activity of holding several possibilities in mind at the same time, allowing us to represent the same situation in many ways and adopt multiple perspectives. The concept of mentalising is rooted in psychoanalysis although it has since flourished in the framework of attachment theory. Mentalising Based Therapy (MBT) was developed for patients with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, who present with anxious attachment, mentalising deficits and resultant emotional dysregulation. The impact of the parent’s attachment style is critical in determining the way the baby responds.
