Childhood adversity and adolescent acting-out behaviors: the mediating role of mentalizing difficulties and epistemic vigilance.

Childhood adversity is a well-established risk factor for adolescent acting-out behaviors such as self-harm, bingeing, substance abuse, and aggressive behavior. From a mentalizing perspective, acting-out behaviors are understood as resulting from a combination of impairments in mentalizing and epistemic vigilance that are a consequence of childhood adversity. Yet, few studies have investigated these assumptions. The current study investigated the potential mediating role of mentalizing impairments and epistemic vigilance in the relationship between childhood adversity and acting-out behaviors in adolescents, oversampled for risk status for psychopathology (N = 451, mean age = 15.40 years). Structural equation modeling showed a strong, direct relationship between childhood adversity and acting-out behaviors, confirming the importance of traumatic childhood experiences for adolescent acting-out behaviors. This relationship was partially mediated by both mentalizing difficulties and epistemic vigilance, explaining about 40% of the total variance. These results support the importance of focusing on strengthening mentalizing abilities and lowering epistemic hypervigilance in psychotherapeutic work with adolescents who have experienced childhood trauma.

A four-year multi-wave prospective study on the role of parental reflective functioning and parenting stress in the development of socio-emotional problems in internationally adopted children.

Parental reflective functioning (PRF) plays a protective role in the development of children with histories of early adversity, including adopted children. This is the first study to investigate the developmental trajectories of PRF and children's socio-emotional problems in the first 4 years after international adoption (N = 48 families, mean age (T1) = 20.7 months) and to examine the mediating role of parenting stress in the relation between PRF and child socio-emotional problems. Multilevel modeling indicated that age at adoption and parent gender moderated the development of PRF and child socio-emotional problems. Moreover, decreases in PRF were associated with more socio-emotional problems in the children. These relations were mediated by parenting stress, and particularly feelings of incompetence and marital dissatisfaction.

Mentalizing individuals, families and systems: Towards a translational socioecological approach.

Mentalization-based treatment (MBT) is a spectrum of interventions that share a central focus on improving the capacity for mentalizing. Although MBT was originally developed as a treatment for individuals with borderline personality disorder, its scope and focus have been broadened to become a socioecological approach that stresses the role of broader sociocultural factors in determining the closely related capacities for mentalizing and epistemic trust. This special issue brings together some of the newest developments in MBT that illustrate this shift. These contributions also highlight several current limitations in mentalization-based approaches, providing important pointers for further research. In this editorial, we first outline the broadening scope of the mentalizing approach, and then provide a discussion of each of the contributions to this special issue in the context of the need for further research concerning some of the key assumptions of mentalization-based approaches and their implementation in clinical practice. We close this editorial with considerations concerning future research.

Parental reflective functioning and theory of mind acquisition: A developmental perspective.

This study investigated theory of mind (ToM) development in 83 children aged 3-5 years and its associations with parental reflective functioning (PRF), using a multidimensional and developmental approach. Results showed that ToM dimensions (i.e., affective, belief-desire, and cognitive) gradually increased with age. All dimensions of PRF (i.e., prementalizing modes, certainty about mental states, and interest and curiosity in mental states) were associated with ToM dimensions, with different dimensions being differentially related to ToM, including age-related effects.

Assessing reflective functioning in prospective adoptive parents.

The capacity for reflective functioning (RF) or mentalizing of adoptive parents is hypothesized to play an important role in fostering socio-emotional development in adopted children. This paper reports on the development and preliminary validation of the Adoption Expectations Interview (AEI), a semi-structured interview to assess RF in prospective adoptive parents. The AEI was developed based on the Pregnancy Interview, Parent Development Interview, and Working Model of the Child Interview, three interviews that have been used to assess RF in biological parents, to capture RF before child arrival in prospective adoptive parents. In a sample of 96 prospective adoptive parents, the Reflective Functioning Scale, as applied to the AEI (AEI-RFS) showed good reliability, with strong correlations between the different demand items, high internal consistency, and good to excellent inter-rater reliability. A principal component analysis yielded one component, suggesting that the items measured a unidimensional factor. Preliminary evidence for the construct validity of the AEI-RFS was demonstrated by significant associations between the AEI-RFS and well-validated measures of mentalizing, attachment dimensions, and interpersonal functioning.