‘Rich’ and ‘poor’ in mentalizing: Do expert mentalizers exist?

Autor: Tobias Nolte, Peter Fonagy, Simon Rogoff, Fiona Warren, Alesia Moulton-Perkins
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Male
Psychometrics
Emotions
Theory of Mind
Social Sciences
Alexithymia
Borderline Personality Disorder
Surveys and Questionnaires
Medicine and Health Sciences
Psychology
Borderline personality disorder
media_common
Cognitive Impairment
education.field_of_study
Multidisciplinary
Cognitive Neurology
Cognition
Middle Aged
Clinical Psychology
Neurology
Feeling
Medicine
Female
Research Article
Clinical psychology
Adult
Adolescent
Social Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
media_common.quotation_subject
Science
Population
Personality Disorders
Young Adult
Psychotherapists
Mentalization
Mental Health and Psychiatry
medicine
Humans
education
Aged
Cognitive Psychology
Biology and Life Sciences
medicine.disease
Personality disorders
Cross-Sectional Studies
Cognitive Science
Empathy
Mental Health Therapies
Neuroscience
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10 (2021)
PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10, p e0259030 (2021)
PLoS ONE
ISSN: 1932-6203
Popis: Mentalization theory is concerned with the capacity to notice, and make sense of, thoughts and feelings in self and others. This development may be healthy or impaired and therefore, by extension, it may be theorized that expertise in mentalizing can exist. Furthermore, a continuum from impairment to expertise should exist within separate dimensions of mentalizing: of self and of others. This study hypothesized that three groups would be distinguishable on the basis of their mentalizing capacities. In a cross-sectional design, Psychological Therapists (‘expert’ mentalizers; n = 51), individuals with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (‘poor’ mentalizers; n = 43) and members of the general population (‘non-clinical controls’; n = 35) completed a battery of self-report measures. These assessed the mentalizing of self and of others (using an extended version of the Reflective Function Questionnaire (RFQ18)), alexithymia and cognitive empathy. As hypothesized, Psychological Therapists’ scores were higher than controls on self-mentalizing and control group scores were higher than those with BPD. Cognitive empathy scores in the BPD group indicated markedly lower capacities than the other two groups. Contrary to predictions, no significant differences were found between groups on mentalizing others in RFQ18 scores. The Psychological Therapist and BPD profiles were characterized by differential impairment with regards to mentalizing self and others but in opposing directions. Results suggest that the RFQ18 can identify groups with expertise in mentalizing. Implications of these results for the effectiveness of psychological therapy and of Psychological Therapists are discussed.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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