Mentalizing in Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Mentalizing in Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy explains how mentalization-based therapy (MBT) can be used within the framework of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapies. Josef Brockmann, Holger Kirsch, and Svenja Taubner explain the outstanding importance of mentalizing for contemporary psychoanalysis and assess the essential conceptual innovations of mentalizing, focusing on outpatient individual therapies for patients with personality disorders. The book demonstrates the high connectivity of mentalizing to psychoanalysis and considers the further development of the concept of mentalizing. A practical and research-oriented work, the book documents numerous case studies, and detailed transcripts of treatment dialogs supplemented by extensive commentary to illustrate the practical application of mentalizing. Mentalizing in Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in training and in practice who are looking to integrate mentalizing into their work.

Josef Brockmann is a psychoanalyst and training analyst based in Frankfurt, Germany. He received advanced training in MBT with Bateman and Fonagy and has been an accredited MBT Practitioner at the Anna Freud Institute in London. He has accumulated many years of experience in psychotherapy research. Holger Kirsch is a specialist in psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and social medicine as well as a teaching analyst (DGPT/DGIP). He is a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (EHD) and has his own private practice. Svenja Taubner is a psychoanalyst, supervisor, and MBT trainer (Anna Freud Center). She is Director of the Institute for Psychosocial Prevention at the University Hospital of Heidelberg University, full professor for psychosocial prevention, and the president of the MBT association for German-speaking countries (MBT-D-A-CH).

About the Authors Foreword by Peter Fonagy Introduction 1. Characteristics of a Modern Psychotherapy 1.1 The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy and MBT 1.2 Impact Factor Models 1.3 General Impact Factors and MBT 1.4 Specific Impact Factors in MBT 1.5 Integrative Impact Models and MBT as an Integrative Psychotherapy Method 2. Central Aspects of the Mentalizing Concept 2.1 Mentalization 2.2 Attachment Relationships as the Basis of Mentalization 2.3 Marked Affect Mirroring as Social Feedback 2.3 Epistemic Trust 2.5 Development of Mentalization 2.6 The Alien Self 2.7 Psychotherapy as a Threefold Communication System 3. Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) 3.1 Mentalization as a Personality Function 3.2 Mentalization as a Multidimensional Construct 3.3 The Transdiagnostic and Transtheoretical Disorder Model of MBT Using Borderline Personality Disorder as an Example 3.4 Therapeutic Goals and Change Mechanism of MBT 3.5 The MBT Process and Content 3.6 The Therapeutic Stance in MBT 3.7 Core Interventions of MBT 3.8 MBT in a Case Study of an 18-Year-Old Man with BPD 4. Psychoanalysis and Mentalization 4.1 Mentalization and Its Influence on Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice 4.2 Theoretical Implications 4.3 The Necessity of Psychoanalytic Understanding in the Mentalization Approach (and Vice Versa) 5. Mentalization in Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 5.1 Treatment Goal: Making Unconscious Conscious and Mentalized Affectivity 5.2 The Therapeutic Relationship, Transference, and Countertransference 5.3 Interpretation and Insight (Content Perspective) or the Not-Knowing Standpoint (Process Perspective) 5.4 Regression or Working in the Here and Now 5.5 Defense and Resistance 5.6 Free Association or Structuring 5.7 An Integrative Treatment Model 6. Case Studies 6.1 Mentalized Affectivity 6.2 Epistemic Trust 6.3 The Alien Self 6.4 Severe Impairment of Mentalizing Abilities in the Presence of High Psychosocial Functioning 6.5 Summary 7. Take-Home Message 8. Instead of a Conclusion The Mentalizing Skills of Therapists: Consequences for Education and Training References