In the last few years, everyone has been talking about mentalization. But what is it, really?

Two British psychologists, Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman, began writing about mentalization in the late 1980’s. They introduced the term to describe the process of understanding our own behavior and that of others in terms of underlying feelings, desires, and intentions. 

Often described as “holding in mind” or “thinking about thinking”, this skill is crucial for understanding other people as well as being helpful in understanding and regulating our own emotions. Mentalization allows us to reflect on our own behavior and that of those around us and to interpret the meaning of this behavior rather than just seeing it as as reactionary. 

This sort of reflection is the core of mentalization and it is an important skill for use in parenting. Fonagy states that for the optimal development of children, it is helpful for parents to imagine what their children are thinking and feeling and to keep these feelings in mind in their everyday interactions with their children. This is different from what is called, “gentle parenting” where parents meet their child’s behaviors with an explanation to the child of their feelings. In fact, you could say, that this technique takes mentalization to an illogical extreme. 

Sometimes described as “having the mind in mind” or “seeing ourselves from the outside and others from the inside,” the capacity for mentalization is important for building an internal picture of how other people’s minds work. 

Once, when my son was about a year and a half old, we were at the Bat Mitzvah of my niece. When the photos of the Bat Mitzvah girl’s late grandparents (my parents) were projected, I began to cry. My son looked at me with concern….and then offered me his bottle.

I wonder now, was this metalization on his part? At one and a half? On a primitive level, my eighteen-month-old could relate to my feelings and he could want to comfort me. But I see this more as empathy which is an identification with another’s feelings. In this case, my son was able to understand and relate to what I was feeling and to understand in that moment that I was feeling something different than he was. To me, this seems like a primitive form of mentalization but I suspect that at that age he was not fully able to imagine what I was thinking and what it was that made me cry.

When children can more fully mentalize, this is it helpful to them in understanding others and in building their own emotional regulation. If a four year old child can begin to understand that his friend took his toy because he had waited a long time and just could not wait any longer, he learns several things – first, that his friend was in a different position than he was. Often called alternate perspective taking, the child can realize that he had the toy and he was enjoying playing with it but his friend did not have the toy and was having a hard time waiting to play with it. This understanding is helpful as it is more tempting to hit someone when they take your toy if you have no understanding of why they did it.

And for parents, mentalization is important for several reasons. First, modeling mentalization is helpful for their children in order for the children to develop this capacity. Children who are able to reflect on their own feelings and to predict the feelings of others are better able to develop good relationships, self confidence and a healthy sense of self. Secondly, using mentalization, that is, keeping your child’s mind in mind while being his parent, helps with differentiating your feelings from your child’s and it can help you with your emotional regulation while dealing with your child.

So what does mentalization look like in parenting? An example of a lack of mentalization would be a parent who hurries their reluctant child into the car for a pediatrician appointment saying only, “Hurry up, we’re going to be late!” The same parent, using their mentalzing function, would realize that their child might be slow in leaving because they are reluctant to go to the doctor’s. The parent might remember that the last time they went, their child received a vaccination, and they would be able to keep in mind that their child might be feeling anxious about the visit and saying to themselves, “I don’t want to go!” or “I won’t go!”. The parent might or might not reflect back to their child what they realize, but their awareness of the child’s mental state would guide their actions with their child.