The Therapist's Mentalizing Stance

10th November 2016

RATIONALE for a "Mentalizing Stance"


During the assessment and intervention stages of Mentalization-based therapies (see MentalizationBasedWork and FamilyWork in this manual), specific Mentalizing manoeuvres are the primary skills that the therapist needs:
  • To flesh out their understanding of the mentalizing capabilities within themself, or their family
  • To assist the client or family members in improving their understanding of mentalizing and the role it plays in all relationships - with family members, with friends, with the self.
  • To improve the family members' capacity to mentalize about each other.
However, there is also a "way-of-being-with" our clients, that is referred to as the Mentalizing Stance, that represents Maintaining Mind-mindedness, and which characterises the mentalizing therapist.

There is one of our Training exercises to help teams learn about this, at the bottom of the page.

The heart of good mentalizing:


Is not so much the capacity to always accurately read one’s own or another’s inner states, but rather a way of approaching relationships that reflects an expectation that one’s own thinking and feeling may be enlightened, enriched, and changed by learning about the mental states of other people. In this respect, mentalizing is as much an attitude as it is a skill, an attitude which is inquiring and respectful of other people’s mental states, aware of the limits of one’s knowledge of others and reflects a view that understanding the feelings of others is important for maintaining healthy and mutually rewarding relationships.
This stance is the ultimate foundation of the approach that the therapist tries to demonstrate and thereby encourage. Remember that Mentalization is one of the Core Features of AMBIT, which includes it as the first aspect of its own stance.

GENERAL FEATURES of the Mentalizing Stance

A series of General features of a "Mentalizing Stance" have been described, which give a broad flavour of the "way-of-being-with" that the stance represents.

In addition there are four more specific and practical aspects of worker behaviour that make up the...

FOUR "LEGS" OF A MENTALIZING STANCE:



1. The Inquisitive StanceConsistently modelling the value of mentalizing
2. Holding the BalanceEmphasising mobile or adaptive qualities
3. Terminating non-mentalizing interactionsDiverse (often playful) methods apply
4. Highlighting and reinforcing Positive MentalizingEncouragement of the desired behaviour

Video

The therapist's mentalizing stance - by Liz Cracknell and DickonBevington at a training for AMBIT Local Trainers

Video - see the first five minutes

A narration to a slide show about the Mentalizing Stance and Active Planning - the mentalizing stance is covered briefly in the first 5 minutes:

Exercise 1: Spot elements of the stance

Client's part played by actor.
Watch the clip and then in pairs or as a group try to spot the elements of the stance that you notice in this clip.
Feel free to criticise the therapist, too - the therapist's mentalizing stance has been likened to flying as it is described by the character Buzz Lightyear in the film Toy Story: "it's just falling... with attitude". The critical elements of maintaining inquisitiveness, are to retain awareness of the extent of one's not-knowing, readiness to take responsibility for getting it wrong, and commitment not to get it wrong again in the same way.

Exercise 2: Real time practice

Client's part played by a volunteer.
Exercise instructions: Watch this video, press PAUSE whenever you are directed, and consider these two questions:
  1. What's the therapist trying to do?
  2. What would you try next?