- What is mentalization and what does it mean for the relationship?
- Problems with the ability to mentalize when there are problems in the relationship?
- Secure relationships and attachment strengthen the mentalization in the relationship
- Mentalizing helps you understand and get what you want in the relationship
- Mentalization-based couple therapy strengthens appreciative togetherness
A BETTER COUPLE RELATIONSHIP THROUGH MENTALIZATION
Mentalization is about perceiving, thinking and feeling clearly in relation to oneself, the partner and what happens between the parties. Mentalizing strengthens attachment and the couple relationship, creates insight, understanding and trust and helps the parties deal with differences, contradictions, conflicts and separation.
Mentalization as a social function for insight and self-regulation
Mentalizing is an important function in the relationship. It is the social function that helps us to understand ourselves, each other and our reactions as well as to handle the regulation of ourselves and our togetherness. Without mentalization, we lack a thermometer and a compass to navigate trenbolone enanthate with, as well as a tool to align the thoughts, feelings, desires and cohabitation with.
Optimal mentalization in the couple relationship and couple therapy
Normally we only see ourselves from the inside and the partner from the outside. It’s like only having two cameras to watch with. But when the psychology, the resources and the mentalization are optimal, we also manage to see ourselves from the outside and the partner from the inside. It’s like having four cameras instead. Or listening in surround sound instead of mono. It provides access to more data as well as a deeper and more nuanced perception (perception), understanding (cognitive) and empathy (emotional).
Mentalization, attachment and stress
Unfortunately, our ability to mentalize is affected by our state of stress (arousal) and relationship (attachment). It doesn’t actually take much stress (anxiety or anger) before the brain and mentalizing ability shuts down.
That is to say, when we feel bad, when things are not going well in the relationship and when the relationship is not good, then the ability to mentalize is also bad. Unfortunately, this is where we most need a good mentalizing ability – for insight, self-insight, understanding, reconciliation, tolerance, recognition, forgiveness, communication, negotiation, conflict resolution and problem solving.
When the ability to mentalize fails, we find it difficult to understand the experiences, thoughts, feelings, wishes and intentions behind our own and our partner’s statements and actions. Then we become confused and frustrated and find it difficult to help ourselves and the partner to achieve what we are actually looking for through our communication and behaviour. In doing so, we risk becoming reactive instead of active. Then it quickly picks up speed at the same time that it risks running away for the couple.
For example: When you say like this… I say like this… and when you do like this… I do like this… Or… if you don’t do like this and like that… then I don’t do like this and like that either. Then we become unconscious and reactive. The autopilot takes over instead of us acting with integrity in relation to ourselves and our own wishes as well as in respect towards ourselves and the partner.
If it is allowed to continue, it can become a negative spiral, where it goes beyond self-respect and self-esteem – the sense of self. In the end, it can go so wrong that the couple becomes so confused that they no longer know who is who and what is what and what they each feel. Many thus experience having problems if their partner has problems and that they can only be happy when their partner is happy. Then they are on the way to losing themselves in the partner and the relationship as well as living through the partner and the relationship.
Mentalization and excess in the relationship
Conversely, when we feel good, when things are going well in the relationship and when the relationship is good, the ability to mentalize is strengthened. Mentalization thus helps to strengthen the attachment, the relationship, the communication and the relationship. It also helps us to find the energy to take the initiative, to go the extra mile, to be generous, to show tolerance and to invest a little extra in the account of emotions. Thus, mentalizing can be a positive spiral that creates profit, prevents attrition and nurtures the spark.
Mentalization and communication in the couple relationship
The ability to mentalize is important for communication in the relationship, as it helps us to feel what we really feel, to express what we want, to listen openly and without prejudice and to regulate ourselves precisely and respectfully in the relationship. It is a positive effect that simultaneously supports the partner in doing the same and in becoming a better version of themselves. So by focusing on mentalisation, you can both have a better and more satisfying relationship as well as develop your self-competence. In this way, mentalizing becomes the best relationship insurance.
MORE ABOUT MENTALIZATION AND MENTALIZATION-BASED THERAPY
Mentalization-based psychotherapy and couple therapy
Mentalization is the foundation of mentalizing psychotherapy and mentalizing couple therapy (MBT/MBpT). Mentalizing therapy is dialogic, process-oriented and insightful and aims to support appreciative togetherness, to provide space and understanding for difference and separateness as well as equality and cohesion.
In the article below, you will get a deeper understanding of mentalization, while also giving examples of how mentalization can be carried out in practice – both in couple therapy and at home in the family and the relationship. Along the way and at the end, you also get concrete tools for developing a better habit of mentalizing.
What is mentalization?
Mentalizing means bringing together and harmonizing perception, brain and heart. To be able to see oneself and to be able to read others as well as to feel what is happening between us. To perceive, think, feel and speak clearly and distinctly. That is, the ability to be able to reflect on what is perceived and felt, incl. what you feel in the other as well as being able to separate the two things. Thus the ability to understand others from the inside and oneself from the outside ~ after Susan Hart. This means that instead of only being able to see yourself from the inside and your partner from the outside, you can now also see yourself from the outside and your partner from the inside. It naturally gives a better perspective and understanding of one’s own as well as the partner’s mental map of reality.
Although the word mentalisation can give associations to cognitive aspects (awareness, cognition, thinking, etc.), mentalisation focuses on a whole of the mental states – the cognitive and emotional (affects).
Mentalization as a social function
Mentalizing is an activity in the mind, with which we humans make use of our ability to perceive and form realistic ideas about other people’s perceptions, reality, thoughts, feelings, states, needs, intentions, goals, reasons and reactions ~ after Peter Fonagy.
The mentalization process is a meaning-making interpretation of one’s own and others’ universe and actions. A process that helps us to reflect on our own and others’ cognitions, affects, impulses, body language, reactions and intentions. Mentalizing helps us to feel and understand ourselves and our loved ones, as well as to see what is happening between us and to see behind the behaviour.
It is through mentalization that we can connect with the meaning of the emotions rather than with the reaction to them. The ability to mentalize is thus a prerequisite for self-awareness, self-insight, empathy, affect regulation, self-regulation and social interaction.
Popularly speaking, you can also call mentalization the social brain – social competence. Mentalizing takes place across cultures and is thus a universal human ability – there may, however, be variations in how the different cultures express mentalizing.
Mental breakdown during stress and crises in the relationship
Mentalizing is a joint attention process that depends on and strengthens attachment, dialogue, interpersonal functioning and integrative processes.
However, our ability to mentalize is not always equally good. It is context-dependent and tends to fail in situations of emotional arousal (wakefulness/activation/stress) arising through the attachment system (relationship). For example, when the couple’s relationship is in crisis, mental breakdowns can occur. Among other things. when our survival strategies (fight, flight or freeze) are activated by e.g. the four apocalyptic horsemen incl. criticism, accusations, scolding, threats, defenses and arguments as well as attacks, assaults, violence, abuse and infidelity.
It is paradoxical, because it is precisely in those situations that we need to feel ourselves and the other. To understand ourselves, the other and the other’s intentions, and to express ourselves precisely and meaningfully so that we can help ourselves and each other to a solution (self-regulation and a more tolerable level of arousal).
When we lose the ability to mentalize and self-regulate, psychological imbalance, symptoms, stress and suffering occur to varying degrees. Understandably or not, it is a defense and if this psychological defense becomes too rigid or dominant, the symptoms call out to us in the form of arguments and conflicts in the relationship, after which some give up and divorce or pull on their work clothes and seek couples therapy.
Many couples who seek couples therapy in that situation are primarily focused on solving their problems and have forgotten that it is the lack of mentalizing ability that is the cause of the problems. The couples therapy will then initially focus on stabilization, then on developing the ability to mentalize and then on psychological communication, problem solving and negotiation. In the long run, the couple thus becomes self-driving – as their own therapist.
Secure attachment in childhood and mentalization
The ability to mentalize is developed in attachment relationships, via caregivers’ congruent and marked mirroring. This implies that the caregivers can register, reason and respond in relation to the emotional state the child is experiencing and to mark that it is the child’s internal state and not their own internal state.
Through this, the child develops a sense of self, ability for intimacy, ability for independence and understanding of own and others’ feelings, thoughts and motives. Conversely, if the child experiences early failure from the caregivers, feelings of abandonment, abandonment problems and abandonment syndromes can arise, which can weaken or hinder normal or sufficient development of the ability to mentalize. Basic mentalization is a therapeutic development work, in that the carer together with the child links fragmented experiences together into a larger whole while also creating affect regulation. This helps the child to integrate his experiences into a larger overall picture, so that the child’s self-experience is no longer so fragmented. The further work consists of trying to link a given incident to other similar experiences that the child has had.
In mentalizing psychotherapy and mentalizing couple therapy, these processes are practiced in collaboration with the client, the partner and the psychotherapist/couple therapist. At the end of the mentalizing psychotherapy and the mentalizing couple therapy, the clients eventually become their own therapist, so that the mentalization is mastered by self-support or support from the partner.
Secure attachment in the relationship and mentalization
Secure relationships and secure attachment thus promote the ability to mentalize and self-regulate. Including understanding of coherence, emotional attunement, body regulation as well as handling stress, anxiety and grief – with the aim of more flexible thoughts, ideas and reactions.
Conversely, it also applies that mentalization promotes secure attachment and a good couple relationship. The human attachment system, which can be perceived as a protection mechanism, is activated in threatening situations and in unsafe relationships. In order to maintain a secure attachment, it is therefore crucial that the parties react in a relatively appropriate and well-adjusted way.
Tips for mentalizing and secure attachment in the relationship
Secure attachment in the relationship is about having a sense of perceived security, being able to show and receive love, being able to give and receive comfort, being able to ask for help when needed, being able to connect without losing oneself. It is not easy for everyone and thus often central topics in family and couple therapy.
When the attachment is secure and the ability to mentalize is good, it gives the children in the family and the adults in the relationship better opportunities to develop mental surplus and to make healthy choices in a turbulent, busy and stressful everyday life. Mentalizing family and couple therapy seeks to reduce the risk of future conflicts, lifestyle problems and illness. Good mentalization is therefore both preventive and strengthening for the relationship and health.
Overall, mentalization can take place implicitly, for example via mirroring and support, or explicitly via, for example, interpretation and dialogue. By understanding ourselves on the basis of mental states, we create inner coherence and become able to see ourselves as meaningful individuals with personality and identity. We can form a picture of ourselves and others, where past, present and future are connected in a meaningful story (narrative).
Mentalization-based couple therapy
Mentalization-based psychotherapy and mentalization-based couple therapy (MBT/ MBpT) is an opportunity to acquire a secure attachment in a stable and mentalizing framework for the relationship, which helps the couple to express what the parties feel (affective presentation) as well as to ask for and to give themselves what they need to be able to regulate themselves and their emotions (affect regulation). At the same time, it supports the partner in the same way. The process-oriented and mentalizing aspect of psychotherapy and couple therapy is thus about creating a framework for secure attachment in the couple relationship and establishing or re-establishing the pressing, loving and acknowledging presence in the couple relationship.
Tips to strengthen mentalization
Parterapi-parterapeut.dk in Copenhagen supports the couple through couple therapy by e.g. to build up an appreciative presence and appreciative dialogue in the relationship. It is created, for example, through: presence of mind, attention, mindfulness, a non-knowing position, wonder, openness, curiosity, initiative, investigation, empathy, empathy, dialogue, support, mirroring, perspective, forgiveness, affect presentation, affective attunement, affect regulation and self-regulation as well as the ability to bracket bias and prejudice and to maintain a simultaneous sense of contact and separateness.
Couples therapy and fusion or process
If the couple fails to shift from the old fusion model (where two should become one and the couple should manifest in unity and agreement) to the process model (allowing differences, change and movement in and out of contact), the couple risks fusing into one. Then it becomes difficult for the parties to feel what is one (one’s feelings) and the other (the other’s feelings). This can cause symbiosis (confluence), confusion and problems with being who you are, feeling what you feel and getting what you want and need. Not least dealing with psychological differences, disagreeing and arguing. In this way, there are many relationships that die because of compromises, where no one is really happy and that it always takes turns. In this way, it can happen that one person enjoys with guilt and shame, while the other waits without actually being there.
Process orientation in psychotherapy and couple therapy
The process-oriented nature of mentalization-based therapy (MBpT) means that there is more focus on the process than the content and results. The journey itself is thus more important than the destination. Because with the same negative process, the couple will again and again create the same negative results. But when the couple understands their own process, they can regulate it themselves and create the results they want. Process and competences are therefore more important than content and short-term solutions.
Process, mentalization and stress management
The four most important resources for stress management are communication, problem solving, flexibility and closeness. Mentalizing thus also helps to build stress robustness and stress regulation as well as the ability to regulate the intensity of our emotions so that we are not swallowed up or subdued by them.
The method is also integrative, as it helps us to own and integrate our feelings and projections as well as unrecognized and split sides of ourselves into a unified and meaningful picture. In this way, we can begin to take greater responsibility for ourselves and what we can actually change, rather than blaming the partner for the problems and trying to change the partner.
If it turns out that during couple therapy there is an interest and need to continue working with appreciative presence, attachment and mentalization, it is possible to integrate more elements from imago therapy or to continue with a focused course of imago therapy. If you are not currently in a permanent relationship, but still interested in understanding your origin, patterns, attraction to certain types of partners and finding your authentic self, Parterapi-parterapeut.dk in Copenhagen also offers image therapy for singles.
Tools for mentalizing and imago dialogue
In addition to the above and your couples therapy at Parterapi-parterapeut.dk in Copenhagen, you can e.g. use the toolbox from Non-Violent Communication (IVK) / Girafsprog or the toolbox from the imago dialog / imago conversation – which is also available free of charge on the Blog about couple relationships and couple therapy.
Are you stuck?
Mentalization can be seen as a central link between emotion, cognition and a person’s actions. Mentalization-based psychotherapy and couples therapy can be seen as a route guide to get out of the dead ends that we humans can get lost in. If you are stuck in a dead end in the form of some of the above or similar patterns and maybe also interested in what lies behind it, personal development, development of your communicative skills and a better couple relationship, couple therapy and imagotherapy can be an option.
By Parterapi-parterapeut.dk
In every crisis there is an opportunity and a lesson.
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