Minding Emotions: Cultivating Mentalization in Psychotherapy

Mentalization--the effort to make sense of our own and others' actions, behavior, and internal states--is something we all do. And it is a capacity that all psychotherapies aim to improve: the better we are at mentalizing, the more resilient and flexible we tend to be. This concise, engaging book offers a brief overview of mentalization in psychotherapy, focusing on how to help patients understand and reflect on their emotional experiences. Elliot Jurist integrates cognitive science research and psychoanalytic theory to break down mentalized affectivity into discrete processes that therapists can cultivate in session. Clinical vignettes are interspersed with discussions of published memoirs that examine emotions in the context of autobiographical memory. A reproducible assessment instrument (the Mentalized Affectivity Scale) can be downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2 x 11 size.