Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self
Mentalization set out in full. The bridge between attachment research and analytic practice.
I really believe that this book will become a classic.
Published in 2002, this volume brings together four authors to give the theory of mentalization its first systematic statement and to set it on developmental and empirical foundations. It treats reflective function as the capacity to read behaviour, one's own and others', in terms of underlying mental states, and traces how that capacity is acquired rather than given. The account places affect regulation at the centre: the infant's states become organised through a caregiver who mirrors them in marked, contingent form, so that emotion can eventually be represented rather than merely discharged. The authors set out the modes that precede secure mentalizing, psychic equivalence, pretend mode, and the teleological stance, and connect disorganised early attachment to later fragility in holding minds in mind. For the clinician it supplies a developmental grammar for what happens when a patient cannot think about feeling, and a way to read the consulting room through it.
About the authors
Peter Fonagy
Peter Fonagy is a Hungarian-British psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist at University College London and the Anna Freud Centre. Working across attachment research and psychoanalysis, he developed the theory of mentalization and the concept of reflective function, arguing that the capacity to hold minds in mind grows within secure early relationships. With Anthony Bateman he built mentalization-based treatment, extending it to conditions long held to resist analytic work. He remains a defining figure in contemporary psychodynamic thinking.
Gyorgy Gergely
Gyorgy Gergely is a Hungarian developmental psychologist and cognitive scientist at Central European University. He co-authored Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self with Peter Fonagy, Elliot Jurist, and Mary Target, a work that shaped contemporary mentalization theory. His research addresses early social cognition: the social biofeedback theory of parental affect mirroring, natural pedagogy, and how infants read rational action. He earned his doctorate at Columbia and has held affiliations with University College London and the Anna Freud Centre.
Elliot Jurist
Elliot Jurist is an American philosopher and clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the City University of New York and former editor of the journal Psychoanalytic Psychology. He co-authored Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self with Fonagy, Gergely, and Target. His own work develops the concept of mentalized affectivity, builds a bridge between the philosophy of mind and psychoanalysis, and keeps emotion central to clinical thinking. He continues to practise and teach.
Mary Target
Mary Target is a British psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London. Her decades of collaboration with Peter Fonagy shaped much of contemporary attachment-informed psychoanalytic thought. With Fonagy, Gergely, and Jurist she co-authored Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self, which sets out how mentalizing capacities form. Her work develops mentalization theory and links it to clinical practice, and she has long contributed to psychoanalytic training and education.
Details
- 2002
- English
- Routledge
- Routledge, 2002
- 592
- 9781855753563