Mentalization in the Family

A Guide for Professionals and Parents

Janne Oestergaard Hagelquist, Heino Rasmussen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000057836
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

Mentalization in the Family draws upon the latest research on child development, parenting, and mentalization theory to provide a comprehensive guidebook for parents, teachers, social workers, and any professional working with families today.

The book explains the core concepts of mentalization, an idea whereby an appreciation of internal mental states, both those of others and oneself, can lead to an understanding of overt behaviour. It explores key ideas central to this – such as attachment style, internal regulation, emotional compass, and parental navigation – but also offers practical guidance around issues such as play, siblings, boundaries, and sexuality.

Accessibly written throughout and featuring pedagogical tools that bring the theory into life, this wide-ranging book will be essential reading for a range of professionals, from those working with foster families to teachers working with troubled or disruptive children. It also offers a way for parents to better understand themselves, their own parenting style, and the dynamics which make up family life.

Chapter 1

Mentalizing – basic concepts

We now turn to the basic concepts in mentalization regarding parenting. In the following, we examine the concepts of mentalization, mentalization failure, and the circle of mentalization failure. The counterpart to mentalization failure – the open-mind approach – will also be described, followed by a model illustrating power and authority.

We also examine a few concepts relating to mentalization and the brain. The brain is a popular organ these days – and rightly so, since we have learned a lot about the workings of the brain within the past few decades. However, it is important to remember that there is still a lot we do not know about the brain. For example, the images that are recorded when a person is experiencing a certain state are fairly unstable, as they will change if the person is holding someone’s hand, for instance (Hari et al. 2015). So although knowledge of the brain will help us to better understand our children and their interaction, it is important to only use this knowledge to support mentalization and understanding of your child and to not reduce your child or yourself to simply a brain.

Mentalization

Mentalization is about perceiving and understanding your own and others’ behaviour based on mental states, that is emotions, needs, goals, reasons, and thoughts. The mentalization approach is particularly well suited for working with children and adolescents because it offers a complete theory on how to best support child development. Mentalization is a capacity that the child will acquire if adults mentalize in their interaction with the child.

On the face of it, mentalization might appear simple and self-evident. But when you start working with the concept it often turns out to be more complicated than first anticipated. Figure 1.1 might help you understand the meaning of mentalization.

Suggestions and strategies

Mentalize yourself first – and then your child. When you mentalize, you are able to regulate your own emotions. It is important to remember that the model is a simplified representation of reality, since mentalization is notions about your own and others’ mental states. This means that the mental states of everyone involved in a situation are important – that includes both the parent and the child who are interacting but also the sister who is listening and the other parent, who might be the subject of the conversation.

Example

A mother reads in a magazine that too many people place their couch against the wall. She experiments by moving the couch to the middle of the room, and it works brilliantly. The father and older sister agree, but the family’s youngest, 12-year-old Mike, does not. While the other three are out shopping, Mike drags the sofa back to its place against the wall with difficulty. When the rest of the family returns, his mother becomes angry, telling Mike that it is not up to him to decide how their home should be furnished. She only just manages to stay mentalizing. First, herself – she feels angry, but also powerless (feelings). Her thoughts revolve around the idea that “no one respects me.” She does not feel that her good idea is recognized (need), namely, to have a nice home (goal). When she was a child, she was living with old, used furniture that she had no part in choosing, and she was always embarrassed about her room (reasons). In regard to her son, she knows that he is scared and sad (feelings). Mike needs things to be clear and foreseeable, and he does not like change (need). Mike has recently experienced some challenges at school, and he attempts to make order out of chaos and create a refuge for himself (goal and reasons).

The fact that the mother is able to go through this small process enables her to approach Mike with better regulated emotions and talk to him about the reason why the couch should be placed in the middle of the room. Mike then asks if it can be moved to its old spot on his birthday, which is in a month. “On your birthday, you get to decide where the couch should be placed,” she answers.

Figure 1.1

How do you do it?

• Other ways to talk about mentalization are: “paying attention to your own and others’ mental states,” “understanding misunderstandings,” “looking at yourself from the outside and the other person from the inside,” and “looking beyond behaviour.”
• When you experience intense emotions and thoughts, attempt to actively consider what is going on in your own mind as well as what is going on in your child’s mind.
• Mentalization is like learning to ride a bike. At the beginning you have to think a lot about what you are doing, but as you progress, the process becomes automatic. But take care that you don’t rely too much on your automatic mentalizing, as it sometimes can trick you. You just have to stay actively thinking about mental states.
• By staying curious about the mental processes that lie behind behaviour, you exercise your “mentalization-muscle.”
• You can never know exactly what is going on in another person’s mind, so your task is to try to guess and be open to the fact that many things can be happening simultaneously in other people’s minds.
• Mentalization is an important part of having a positive, united sense of self, as well as of our emotions and relations to others.
• Mentalization is a particularly useful tool to be used in conflicts.

Mentalization failure

Mentalization failure happens when you lose your focus on your own and others’ mental states. This means losing touch with your own emotions, needs, goals, reasons, and thoughts – as well as the other person’s. The capacity for mentalization can fail, for instance, under intense emotional agitation or when you feel threatened (Bateman & Fonagy 2007). Children typically experience many mentalization failures because they have not yet developed the capacity for mentalization. As an adult, you should attempt to not let yourself be affected by this and instead be a role model for mentalization, since the child cannot do it on its own.

Everyone experiences mentalization failure – and usually many, both big and small, every day. Some people react explosively and heatedly to mentalization failure. Others simply shut down, become silent, and appear calm, yet they are not in touch with their own or others’ mental state.

Suggestions and strategies

Mentalization failures should be regarded as interesting and challenging opportunities for exercising your own as well as your child’s capacity for mentalization. Figure 1.2 can be used for talking to other adults and older children about what happens just before a mentalization failure, while you were headed down a black hole and were unable to understand either yourself or the other person.

When you are on your way back to being able to mentalize, the ability is fragile and breaks down more easily, especially if others challenge you. When your capacity for mentalization is restored, you are able to look at the situation in quite a different light.

Example

A father has just woken up his two daughters, who are 9 and 14 years old. He chats with them from the bathroom, and suddenly remembers that his eldest daughter, Leah, needs her clean gym shorts for school today. He enters her room, saying: “Look what I’ve washed for you, so they’re ready for today.” Just when he is half a step inside Leah’s room, she slams the door in his face and yells: “GET OUT, you idiot!”

The father gets angry; the door almost hit him right in his face. He kicks the closed door before stomping into his other daughter’s room. She is still lying in her bed, looking at her phone. He yells at her: “Get up, right now! What the hell do you think you are doing? You aren’t allowed to look at that shit. GET UP, now!” He leaves, walks past Leah’s door again, and kicks it again while yelling: “I’m leaving – I can’t take this madhouse any longer, and there is no birthday party this weekend, do you understand?”

Figure 1.2

How do you do it?

• The more you are aware of the risk of mentalization failure, the better you are able to understand yourself and your triggers (that is, situations that remind you of other, similar negative situations and which activate intense emotions such as anxiety, anger, or stress).
• The more you are aware of the risk of mentalization failure, the better you are able to understand your child and its own triggers.
• When your child experiences a mentalization failure, the most important thing to do is to remain calm and mentalizing yourself.
• When you are unable to mentalize yourself, you cannot help others mentalize.

The vicious circle

Mentalization failure can be described as a vicious circle which begins when you experience intense emotions. Intense emotions lead to poor mentalization, which means that it becomes difficult to understand others and you start making negative assumptions about the other person’s thoughts and feelings. You might act based on these assumptions, and this affects the way that others think and feel. As a consequence, they might act in a way that further intensifies your own emotions. In this way, the vicious circle can continue and spread to others.

Suggestions and strategies

It is a good idea to be aware, firstly, of the risk of starting up or becoming a part of this very common vicious circle, and secondly, that you are able to change such negative spirals yourself by maintaining your capacity for mentalization.

Example

After a long week, 6-year-old Lisa is out shopping with her father on a Friday night. Lisa is very frustrated and says: “I want my candy.” Her father gets angry, saying: “We have talked about this so many times. You are allowed have some candy on Friday night, but this is way too much.” He snatches the bag of candy from her hand (intense emotions and poor mentalization) and returns many of the contents to their shelves. Lisa says: “Dad, you’ve taken out my favourite candy!” The father replies: “Just stop it, Lisa” (poor ability to understand others’ emotions). Lisa says: “Dad, please; it’s the ones shaped like clowns that I like so much.” Her father feels provoked, thinking: “She has no sympathy for the fact that I am tired, and she tries to make a fool of me here where people I know can see how she humiliates me” (making assumptions about what other people think and feel). Lisa says again: “I promise I won’t spend too much, but can I please just have the candy that is shaped like clowns?” The father hisses at her: “You are so selfish, trying to ruin everything for me. Forget about it” (starts to react based on these assumptions). Li...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Structure of the book
• Reading guide
• Introduction
• 1 Mentalizing – basic concepts
• 2 The nautical universe
• 3 The child’s development
• 4 The mentalization toolbox
• 5 Your own childhood’s influence on your parenting style and the mentalizing family
• 6 Challenges in parenting
• References
• Index