Mentalizing Minds

Abstract

This article explores the meaning and significance of the notion of mentalization. Although Fonagy borrows the concept from theory of mind, he develops it in a way that has particular relevance for the integration of attachment theory and psychoanalytic theory. Mentalization is not innate, but has its source in the early relationship wherein the primary caregiver's interpretation of the infant allows the infant's mind to grow and interpret for himself or herself; it is not just cognitive, but is based on cognitive-affective schemas; and it is not just about correct social prediction, but is especially germane to the kind of mindreading that occurs in the context of intimate relationships such as psychotherapy. I introduce a new criticism of the theory of mind literature as ignoring that minds have emotional styles, and I use Balint's distinction between philobats and ocnophils to illustrate this point. Finally, I explicate the concept of mentalized affectivity and propose that it allows us to capture how minds can understand one another in the clinical realm.

Notes

¹There is only a single mention of other people in the Meditations, when Descartes looks out of his window in the first meditation and thinks that he sees someone, but then raises the skeptical question of whether he can really be sure that it is not an automaton under the hat and coat.

²The Hegelian influence on psychoanalysis is subtle and not necessarily direct, although there is an actual trajectory from Hegel to Lacan to Winnicott.

³As Carruthers and Smith (1996) described it:

The original false-belief task involved a character, Maxi, who places some chocolate in a particular location and then leaves the room; in his absence the chocolate is then moved to another location. The child is then asked where Maxi will look for the chocolate on his return. In order to succeed in this task, the child must understand that Maxi still thinks that the chocolate is where he left it—the child must understand that Maxi has a false belief, in fact [p. 2].

⁴This argument can be turned around, though, against attachment theory and relational psychoanalysis: that they have an ocnophilic bias that too easily pathologizes philobatism.

⁵Deborah Luepnitz (2002) used this passage and came to a similar conclusion as Freud in her moving tales of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with homeless and other non-middle class patients, Schopenhauer's Porcupines.

⁶Freud (1900) observed how fluid and mobile affects are in attaching themselves to other mental states.