This is maintained via an inquiring, respectful, curious, and tentative stance. A mentalizing "icon of inquisitiveness", detective Columbo represents this; he is one of the legs on The Therapist's Mentalizing Stance table!



See also Maintaining Mind-mindedness and Careful and concerned CURIOSITY which address aspects of this stance.



The stance a mentalizing therapist needs to acquire and display is one which is inquiring and respectful of other people’s mental states. Systemic therapists also refer to this position as one of ‘curiosity’ (Cecchin, G. (1987). Hypothesising, circularity and neutrality revisited: an invitation to curiosity), though we particularly emphasise that it is important for therapists to reflect a view that an understanding (or the activity of working out my understanding) of others' states of mind is important, including what those feelings might be and what thoughts, meanings and related experiences are attached to them.

With a few provisos, Colombo-style Curiosity is a good way to capture this quality of "Safe Uncertainty" (Mason, B (1993) Towards positions of Safe Uncertainty) - a confident "Not-Knowing" that stimulates authentic exploration and new learning.

The implication in this is that the therapist needs to be actively promoting and provoking an interest and measured enthusiasm about MENTAL STATES, and value of learning about them. Thus the therapist may say:

“This is interesting, I wonder Sally what it feels like for you when your dad does x?” “Let me see if I got this right: are you saying that when your dad does x that makes you feel y, and you think to yourself z?” If the therapist wants to share a hypothesis about what someone might be feeling, he or she qualifies this by saying “I’m not sure I’ve got this right, so please tell me, but I was wondering whether Sally might feel x, is that right Sally?”

Understanding Misunderstandings

The inquisitive stance allows for a confident "not-knowing" - on the basis that it is through coming to understand the things that I misunderstand I am most likely to achieve real understanding:

Therapist posture