![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
Objective
Mentalizing difficulties can be considered the core psychopathology of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Typical failures of mentalizing are targets in therapy for BPD. They are related to severe distress, relational problems, self-destructive behaviors, violence, or substance misuse. A major obstacle in BPD treatment research is the lack of suitable and easily administrated methods to assess mentalizing ability during treatment. The Mentalization Breakdown Interview (MBI) is a new method for capturing episodic mentalizing difficulties occurring in close relationships. Interviews are videotaped and scored in accordance with the Reflective Functioning Scale (MBI-RF). In this way the patients’ ability to retrospectively reflect over such episodes are evaluated. This study investigates the interrater reliability of MBI-RF.
Methods
The study includes videotapes of MBIs from 32 patients with BPD in an outpatient clinic specialized on mentalization-based treatment (MBT). The MBIs were performed by MBT therapists. Three certified raters scored MBI-RF.
Results
The interrater reliability was good for MBI-RF.
Conclusions
The MBI is promising as a BPD-focused method for the assessment of Reflective Functioning.
Ethical approval
All participating patients gave their written consent to use anonymous, clinical data for research purposes. The interviews were videotaped and stored in accordance with procedures approved by the data protection officer at Oslo University Hospital. Since the data extracted from the videos were saved anonymously, formal approval from the Norwegian State Data Inspectorate and Regional Committee for Medical Research and Ethics was not required.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The dataset used and analyzed during the current study can be made available on special request.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Dag Anders Ulvestad
Dag Anders Ulvestad (MD) is senior consultant at Section for Personality Psychiatry and Specialized Treatments, Oslo University Hospital. He is certified MBT therapist and supervisor in psychodynamic psychotherapy. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Oslo on a project concerning assessment of mentalizing within psychotherapy research.
Merete Selsbakk Johansen
Merete Selsbakk Johansen, (MD, PhD) is a psychiatrist in private practice. She is specialized in psychoanalysis and member of the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). She is an active researcher, and specialized in assessment of reflective functioning, certified and trained by Anna Freud Centre, London.
Elfrida Hartveit Kvarstein
Elfrida Hartveit Kvarstein, (MD, PhD) is head senior consultant at Section for Personality Psychiatry and Specialized Treatments, Oslo University Hospital and associate professor at the University of Oslo (UiO). She is leader of the Research group for Personality Psychiatry, UiO and specializes in clinical research on personality disorder.
Geir Pedersen
Geir Pedersen, (MA, PhD) is leader of the Norwegian Network for Personality Disorders at Section for Personality Psychiatry and Specialized Treatments, Oslo University Hospital. He is an active researcher, and specializes in clinical research on personality disorder, assessment methods, clinical quality systems and psychometrics.
Theresa Wilberg
Theresa Wilberg is a professor of psychiatry at University of Oslo and senior researcher at Oslo University Hospital. She has published several scientific articles and book chapters within the field of personality psychiatry, and has co-authored a textbook on personality psychiatry and a book on avoidant personality problems.