Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self

by Peter Fonagy, Gyorgy Gergely, Mary Target

Winner of the 2003 Gradiva Award and the 2003 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic Scholarship

Arguing for the importance of attachment and emotionality in the developing human consciousness, four prominent analysts explore and refine the concepts of mentalization and affect regulation. Their bold, energetic, and encouraging vision for psychoanalytic treatment combines elements of developmental psychology, attachment theory, and psychoanalytic technique. Drawing extensively on case studies and recent analytic literature to illustrate their ideas, Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target offer models of psychotherapy practice that can enable the gradual development of mentalization and affect regulation even in patients with long histories of violence or neglect.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Counselling, Neuroscience

592 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

Reviews

[John Spalding · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating use of developmental psychology, attachment theory, psychoanalysis, and cognitive perspectives to explore the ways in which bad parenting can leave children unable to interpret their own feelings and those of others. The authors show how such a misreading of feelings translates to an inability to regulate emotion and is an underlying feature of most personality disorders. Solid theory, full of clinical examples and implications. If you follow current trends in psychotherapy but are among the thinning ranks of those who still value psychoanalysis, then check out this book.

[AJW · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a very worthwhile read. I found it to be a novel mixture of thinking about affects, psychoanalytical theory, child developmental theory, clinical psychology, psychopathology and neuroscience. I learned loads of interesting stuff and enjoyed the challenge of absorbing new insights combining these fields. Chapter 2 was a superb summary on the history of thought on affects, firstly in philosophy and later on in psychotherapy. I'm not a mental health professional so I found it hard work at times, re-reading some sections multiple times until I was sure I understood what was written. However I feel I was well rewarded for my labours, gaining lots of insights and knowledge. I gained an empathic understanding for people who live in an emotional world of psychic equivalence compared to most people who have self-reflective abilities or mentalisation skills.

Two criticisms: Firstly I found the book a bit variable and "bitty". My guess is that this is due to the writing styles of the different authors. Sometimes a technical term would be explained, other times they were thrown in without clarification. But there were frequent unnecessary repetitions in content. And one chapter (chapter 9 I think) where a paragraph was repeated more or less word for word. My second criticism comes from using the Kindle version - no proof reading was done and the scanning of the original text into Kindle format made numerous confusing errors. It was a real challenge at times working out what the text really said compared to what was in front of me on the Kindle screen. These reasons are why I marked it down to 3 stars.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fonagy's such an engaging speaker that I forgave him for some of the unqualified incertitude of this book. What is mentalization? One would form the impression that it's everything, but it can't be everything, else it's nothing. Rant: One of the problems with "experts" in many psychological disciplines is how carelessly they toss about jargon that no one has ever succinctly defined.

[Bob Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book that examines the principles of mentalization, affect regulation and its relationship to clinical practice.

Fonagy has been researching affect regulation for a good portion of his life and it shows. This book demonstrates the way that human emotional attachment with their parents paves the way for their development later on in life. When this is done succuessfully, the person has a healthy attachment and a way to process their emotions. When this aspect is impacted negatively, the person tends to have problems later in life.

This book is very dense and at times very difficult to read. The writing is not very clear, but the content, once you crack it open is very helpful.

I recommend this book for counselors and those interested in psychology.

Grade: B+

[Mille Maja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Very comprehensive understanding over the mentalization ability. Sometimes a bit overly completated.

[Mohamad · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a dense book, and it's the first thing I've read related to MBT and mentalization. I think I'll read it again someday to fully digest the material.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful ideas (to me): "marked" emotional display; the importance of pretend play for child development; mentalization both as empathy and understanding intention; the idea of concepts that you can abstractly understand, but not "get" (as with mentalization); the idea of "teleological" thinking. Also, due to my ignorance, this book taught me about borderline personality disorder and psychoanalysis.

It was interesting to read the different case histories. Each analyst/therapist had a different personality. I found that with Fonagy's case histories, I felt like I was getting more of the intellectual "meat" of how mentalization worked in the scenario. Whereas with Jurist, I felt more, and Jurist seemed like a warmer person, but I felt some kind of annoyance that he wasn't giving me my concepts. Then I reflected, how odd, that I value concepts over emotions, but the very chapter Jurist wrote was about mentalizing emotions. I think I have some kind of mentalization deficit, not severe like with Fonagy's patients, but very much like Jurist's more-normal patients, and I wonder how many other more-or-less normal people do, and what relation that has with a kind of vague, normalized lack of empathy that one might see in Western, "grown-up" society.

My favorite line was from Gergely's patient "Mat", age 4 or 5 (p. 309):

Guessing what he expected me to do, I pretended to cry a little. Mat smiled broadly and told me: "Don't be sad, but step over me, and then I shall die!" "And you won't be sad?"--I asked. "No, because I like to die!"--he answered cheerfully.

"Mat" is my favorite because he has so much spirit.

[Silvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE book!!! THE master!!! El bombon asesino jajajaj chiste interno sorry!!

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scientific guide to theoretical background behind attachment-based view of BPD and treatment method (MBT)