Enhance Your Relationships with Mentalization

In a recent conversation with a friend, I mentioned 'mentalization.' They stared at me—a stare that communicated, "Are you making this up?" It was as if I had invented the term to sound smart and confuse people with my nonsense.

Nonetheless, I believe that this friend is a master of mentalization. They relate deeply and possess intricate self-understanding. They just did not know there was a word for it.

Maybe you are in the same boat.

Mentalization is the concept of keeping in touch with what we and others are thinking, feeling, and experiencing at any given moment (Bateman and Fonagy, 2016).

When mentalization is online, we feel connected and can understand each other beyond the surface. For example, if I stumbled into the local dollar store with a worried look on my face and difficulties deciding what I could purchase, one might guess, 'Perhaps, she is preoccupied with something?'

While we cannot read minds, curiosity about ours and each other's mental states marks effective mentalization.

On the contrary, when we are stressed, we can lose some of our sense in these areas and fall into pre-mentalizing modes. For example, if a worker had been feeling particularly down on herself that day and saw my face, she might think something along the lines of, "That person hates me too. Look at their frown."

The above is an example of psychic equivalence, wherein we project our mental states into reality and others' minds. The tricky thing about psychic equivalence is that we rarely know that we are doing it. Yet, it can wreak havoc on our ability to relate.

No one mentalizes perfectly all the time. That would be impossible. Yet, understanding mentalization as a concept and keeping a pulse on how effectively we are relating can be game-changing to relationships.

Here are three ways you can build your mentalization capacities:

1. Embrace Curiosity

At its core, effective mentalization is built on curiosity. Asking questions, taking notice of connections, and treating the assumptions that present themselves especially tentatively can ignite this curiosity and improve mentalization.

2. Take a Moment to Pause

When it comes to mentalization, a racing mind is not our friend. Taking a moment to pause, reset, and reflect, particularly when we are entering spaces of overwhelm can assist with keeping our mentalization online. You can think of it like this, just as a computer can only do so many functions at once, our minds are often limited. When we are overwhelmed, we are vulnerable to shortcuts that hurt our mentalization capacity. Yet, intentionally taking time to reflect counters this.

3. Seek Psychotherapy

Mentalization-based psychotherapy can take place in group, individual, and family settings. In this type of specialized psychotherapy, mentalization is addressed directly in relationships including the therapeutic relationship and others in the participant's life. A study of healthcare professionals found that after a course of mentalization-based therapy, their social cognition abilities improved (Steinmair and colleagues, 2021).