When mentalizing occurs in a session - even if it is mentalizing in only its most fleeting form (a young person who hesitates for a few seconds in the middle of a tirade, puts her head in her hands and mutters "I dunno, its just so hard to make sense of things sometimes") it is important that the KeyWorker:

(a) NOTICES this
(b) COMMENTS on it - describing what was seen
(c) ENQUIRES whether the young person noticed anything slightly different about how things felt, how they thought their mind was working at that point in time
(d) EXPLAINS why this simple moment seemed important, and how this different way of thinking about things might come up with different kinds of solutions...



The therapist aims to deepen people’s ability to connect feelings, thoughts and intentions, and in order to do so:

• Searches actively for examples (or episodes) of good mentalization
• Positively connotes these
• Enlarges upon them

“When you did x, I was very impressed by how you each tried to get your heads around this…. Father, you did x; mother, you did y; Johnny you did….”