Mentalising is one of the most taken-for-granted, least distinctive phenomena that might occur in our day-to-day lives, and more relevantly, in our therapeutic conversations.When it’s happening well, we relate to ourselves and others flexibly and creatively, human behaviours appear predictable, and making meaning in our lives is possible…and when it is absent, well…you get the picture.
In personality disorders, the capacity to mentalise has been shown through numerous studies to be compromised. Mentalising Based Treatment (MBT) was developed by Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman, to treat this deficit in some of the most vulnerable individuals. We will be exploring this necessary capacity and MBT, and you’ll get a chance to understand / build and encourage interventions that aim to strengthen this capacity in your clinical work.