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Mentalization based treatments with children, young people and families

Mentalizing is the process of making sense of self and others in terms of underlying mental states. It is what we do when we are imagining what might be going on in the mind of someone, underneath the behaviour that we see on the outside. Mentalizing is a uniquely human process, and it is something that we do automatically, often without conscious thought in our every-day social interactions.

Increasingly mentalizing is thought to be one of the core processes that effective therapies have in common. Effective mentalizing supports wellbeing in several ways; it enables us to predict and make sense of the behaviour of self and others, to understand the social world, to regulate attention and emotion and helps to form a strong sense of self and develop good interpersonal relationships.

Mentalization based treatments place mentalizing at the centre of the therapeutic process. They aim is to promote mentalizing and resilience in children and young people, along with their families and carers, so they can feel better equipped to tackle the problems that brought them to therapy and to learn how to make better use of supportive relationships.

A core part of all mentalizing approaches is the therapist’s mentalizing stance. The mentalizing stance is both an attitude and a skill. It is a ‘way-of-being-with’ that creates safety, trust and curiosity and facilitates mentalizing in the therapist and those seeking help.

Please watch the video and read the sections below for more information about mentalizing and training in a mentalization based treatment for children, young people, families, and carers at Anna Freud .

  • Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children: A Time-Limited Approach

    Written by an international team of clinician-researchers who are pioneering the MBT model with children, the authors begin by exploring the significance of mentalization and then devote the core chapters to the process of conducting short-term (9-12 sessions) MBT for children, including problem assessment and case formulation in terms of mentalizing techniques, the therapist's stance, and treatment termination.

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  • Mentalization-Based Treatment with Families

    The expert authors focus on ways to help parents, children, and adolescents to overcome blocks in how they relate to one another by gaining a deeper understanding of--and openness to--each other's experiences and points of view. The volume draws on the empirically supported mentalization-based treatment (MBT) model and interweaves it with systemic concepts and interventions.

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  • Mentalization-Based Treatment for Adolescents A Practical Treatment Guide

    The book focuses on describing MBT work with adolescents in a practical way that reflects everyday clinical practice. With chapters authored by international experts, it elucidates how to work within a mentalization-based framework with adolescents in individual, family and group settings.

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  • Reflective Parenting A Guide to Understanding What's Going on in Your Child's Mind

    Reflective Parenting is an informative and enriching read for parents, written to help parents form a better relationship with their children. It is also an essential resource for clinicians working with children, young people and families to support them in managing the dynamics of the child-parent relationship.

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  • Minding the Child: Mentalization-Based Interventions with Children, Young People and their Families

    Minding the Child considers the implications of the concept of mentalization for a range of therapeutic interventions with children and families. Mentalization, and the empirical research which has supported it, now plays a significant role in a range of psychotherapies for adults. In this book we see how these rich ideas about the development of the self and interpersonal relatedness can help to foster the emotional well-being of children and young people in clinical practice and a range of other settings.

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  • Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self

    This book focuses on the crucial importance of developmental work to psychotherapy and psychopathology. It offers an account of psychotherapy to integrate scientific knowledge of psychological development and represents psychological states in the minds of infants, children, adolescents, and adults.

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  • Mentalizing in Psychotherapy: A Guide for Practitioners (Psychoanalysis and Psychological Science)

    This concise book guides therapists of any orientation to incorporate innovative mentalization-based strategies into assessment and intervention. Complex ideas are clearly explained and illustrated with extensive session transcripts and vignettes. Ways to help clients struggling with dysregulated emotions and behavior are highlighted.

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