Supportive and interpretative interventions in fostering mentalisation during counselling

ABSTRACT

This work analysed which profiles of counsellors’ supportive and interpretative actions emerged in two group counselling interventions designed to promote mentalisation in underachieving university students. The Psychodynamic Intervention Rating Scale was used to analyse this and the level of depth of defence interpretations. Two outcome measures were administered to analyse student mentalisation and their academic achievements. Process findings showed that supportive actions were used for the most part in both counselling interventions; however, only one group improved in terms of mentalisation and academic performance. In the good-outcome group, there were more defence interpretations, especially during the early sessions, and with a deeper level of elaboration. The innovative relevance of these findings and their implications for practice among counsellors are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Supportive/interpretative interventions
• mentalisation
• group counselling
• underachieving university students
• process analysis

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to Michael Bond who kindly sent us the manual of the Psychodynamic Intervention Rating Scales (PIRS) in order for us to meet the research aims of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Giovanna Esposito is a Researcher of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Her research concerns the study of mentalisation in group counselling, and the use of multimodal narrative devices in clinical psychology interventions.

Denise Marano is a clinical psychologist. Her main research interests focus on evaluation of psychotherapy effectiveness and on clinician's interventions. Over the past years she has studied the therapeutic process from a narrative perspective and according to mentalisation theory. Currently she is working as a clinical psychologist for some health facilities and collaborates with the University of Naples, Italy, in the field of process research.

Maria Francesca Freda is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Her research interests include clinical psychological intervention within the institutional framework, narrative methods, combined medical and psychological interventions in the health sector, trauma elaboration during illness, promotion of inclusion processes for disadvantaged students, and training in clinical psychology.

Additional information

Funding

This work was made possible by a grant from the European Commission (Grant Agreement 2011- 4040 Project 517750-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN) for the INSTALL Project. This project was funded with support from the European Commission. This publication only reflects the views of the author, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be produced from the information contained herein; Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.