Mentalization, Affect Regulation, and Development of the Self

The panel chair, Glen Gabbard, opened the two-day panel with some reflections on the place of mentalization theory in psychoanalytic discourse. Although in recent years we have had few new paradigms, mentalization theory appears to be a genuinely new model of psychoanalytic developmental and clinical theory. This model extends the clinical observations of object relations theory and calls to mind Fairbairn's assertion that the libidinal motivation of the infant is primarily “object seeking.” Mentalization theory provides models both of early childhood psychological development and of psychotherapeutic practice. The fundamental therapeutic application of mentalization to psychodynamic technique lies in the observation that adult patients may experience corrective developmental experiences “when the patient finds himself in the eyes of the therapist.”

Peter Fonagy gave a detailed presentation based on work he and his colleagues Target, Gergely, and Juris have done. In this work, mentalization is defined as the “implicit or explicit perception or interpretation of the actions of others and oneself as intentional.” This process occurs unconsciously and naturally, and is distinguished from conscious self-reflection. Mentalization theory is similar to the concept of “theory of mind” in the cognitive developmental literature, but is more comprehensive in that it includes attachment and the development of the self. In this model, psychotherapy derives its therapeutic value from