Enhancing Parent-Child Bonds with MBT: The Power of Mentalization & Reflective Functioning

Mentalization plays a crucial role in parent-child relationships. Parental mentalization is quite promising and when parents mentalize their children they focus on their children’s behavior, feelings, desires, thoughts, and goals. Mentalization-based therapy or MBT has gained momentum in recent years because of the benefits that it offers in a parent-child relationship. More about mentalization and MBT can be known from the following array of this article.

Mentalization is the normal capacity of human beings to identify thoughts and emotions in their self and others. ⁽¹⁾ Mentalizing can be considered a transactional and intergenerational process in families, and this concept of mentalization offers a beneficial framework to understand psychopathology In parents, children, and their families. While mentalization is a capacity we use daily, some people find it challenging to apply in certain situations.

Parental mentalization is a socio-cognitive skill that first develops within early parent-child relationships. ⁽²⁾ It helps the parents to identify their and their children’s thoughts and emotions.

Reflective functioning or RF is an operationalized term assigned to mentalization, that refers to the measured degree and aspects of mentalization. Parental reflective functioning (PRF) is part of a broader concept of parental mentalization, and it is the term referred to the mental capacity of parents to understand their own and their children’s behaviors in terms of envisioned mental states. Parental reflective functioning is considered one of the primary predictors of sensitive parenting.

Mentalization-based therapy (MBT) is a manualized treatment protocol, which was first developed by Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy for treating patients suffering from borderline personality disorders. ⁽³⁾ This therapy has been further adapted to treat other mental disorders in which mentalizing deficits could be a part of the underlying issues (for example; eating disorders, anxiety, and psychotic disorders). So, MBT is a type of long-term psychotherapy. However, during the past two decades, Mentalization-based therapy has also been used for parents, children, youths, and families. ⁽⁴⁾

MBT helps in making sense of our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and wishes, and also in linking all these to our actions and behaviors. In other words, it can be said that mentalization-based therapy aims at improving our capacity to mentalize. In MBT, the therapist works with parents, children, and families to interrupt the vicious cycle of non-mentalizing and to regain or stabilize the process of mentalization in specific areas. This particular process can enhance functional family or parent-child interactions.

Parental mentalization, i.e. parental reflective functioning (PRF) is quite promising in giving clear focus and route for clinical work with parents, children, or families, both pre-and also postnatally. With positive changes occurring in the levels of PRF, probably there is an increasing curiosity towards the baby’s mental development and also the overall development of the baby, and a positive attitude towards parenting. It also helps in diminishing the risk of misunderstanding in communication among family members. ⁽⁵⁾

Mentalization or parental reflective functioning can help parents to think of various alternative mental states underlying the reaction, attitudes, and behavior of their children. This is highly essential for better parent-child interaction and child-secure attachment. It has significance in breaking the chain of “inherited” models of parenting and is thus regarded as the primary approach in models of therapeutic action in several parent-infant interventions. This develops a better parent-child relationship.

Parental mentalization enables parents to be pretty curious about their children as separate and unique persons with developing specific features, temperaments, and needs, right from the beginning. Parental mentalization or PRF helps parents to value their children.

Parents with good PRF levels are better able to reflect on feelings before acting or responding to different situations in their parenthood. It also helps parents to understand their children well and have healthy communication with them.

Few studies have highlighted the important role of Parental reflective functioning (PRF) regarding the psychopathological symptoms of a child by showing a negative association between good parental mentalization and a child’s internalizing and externalizing problems and better socio-emotional competencies in children and also fewer socio-emotional problems for the child. ^{(6, 7)} Some studies have, however, suggested a protective role of parental mentalizing in a child’s psychological outcomes.

Understanding our thoughts and emotions and those of our children well can help us build great bonds with our children and also can help in improving our and our children’s psychological and mental health. If you find that as a parent, you need support in developing a good PRF to understand the feeling, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of your children, then reach out for MBT and grab its benefits.

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