Attachment representations and mentalizing in middle childhood across one year: A preliminary pilot longitudinal study.

Bizzi, Fabiola; Mora, Simone Charpentier; Bastianoni, Chiara; Ensink, Karin; Cavanna, Donatella; Borelli, Jessica L.

doi:10.1037/pap0000379

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The narcissistic profile child does not attempt to test the correctness of thoughts and beliefs or alternative ways, because, for this child, what the child thinks and feels is reality. Competition is very real, even in games, and the child cannot tolerate defeat and wants to win in any way possible [37]. For this child, only the result or achieving what the child wants is important.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attachment-Based Mentalization Profiles of Iranian Children: A Mixed-Method Approach

Zandpour,

Lind,

Sharp

et al. 2024

Children

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Mentalization, operationalized as reflective functioning (RF), is the ability to understand one’s own and another’s mental world implicitly or explicitly. RF is a newly discovered research field in Iran and is largely under-studied in Eastern cultures in general, underscoring the high need for cross-cultural studies in this field of research. A qualitative method was used to examine the ability to understand, process, and respond to high-arousal attachment situations in typical and clinical populations of Iranian children recruited from a Tehran primary school. A well-known semi-structured interview commonly used to assess RF in children was used to collect data. Required information on internalizing and externalizing symptoms, demographic information, and all formal diagnoses of children were collected by parents. The results indicated the identification of four different profiles of RF in children, one of which was adaptive, while the other three were maladaptive. Also, the results showed that typically developing children and those having a high social and economic status (SES) were characterized as having a more adaptive profile of RF, while children from the clinical population and those with a low SES reported a more maladaptive profile (passive mentalizing, helpless mentalizing, narcissistic mentalizing) of RF. The present study is an important step in increasing our understanding of the development of mentalization in children and has significant educational and clinical implications.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attachment-Based Mentalization Profiles of Iranian Children: A Mixed-Method Approach

Zandpour,

Lind,

Sharp

et al. 2024

Children

Self Cite

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“…The small sample size will not allow do draw any gentrifications out of the results. Taken into account that the study is no RCT, historical control data will be used for comparison (Bizzi et al, 2022). One of the critical aspects of RCT is that "Intervention fidelity refers to the reliability and validity of the clinical interventions that are used in the randomized trial" (Cook and Thigpen, 2019, p. 64).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating foster care: how parental drug use and caregiver attitudes shape children’s mentalization processes—an exploratory longitudinal follow-up study: study protocol

Springer,

Lueger-Schuster

2024

Front. Psychol.

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BackgroundThe current research concept of mentalization is used in the study to clearly identify affective and cognitive abilities of the caregiver-child dyad with the aim of compensating deficits on both sides with psychological-psychotherapeutic strategies.MethodsThe objective of this explorative, longitudinal intervention study is to provide an in-depth understanding of the psycho-social background of 30 children aged 6–12 years living in institutional or family-centered foster care. Data will be collected at three time points: before, after and 12 months after participating in the newly developed group intervention, which intends to address the particular needs of children of drug abusing parents living in foster care in the latency period. The study is conducted at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Vienna in collaboration with the Association “Dialogue” (Verein Dialog). The treatment duration spans 5 months, during which two specifically trained psychotherapists conduct 10 group sessions for children and three group sessions for foster caregivers. All statistical analyses will consider the type of data available. Therefore, the primary outcome of the study will be assessed via the Friedman test due to the ordinal dependent variable as it is the non-parametric alternative to the one-way ANOVA for repeated measures. In addition, the Mann–Whitney U test is used to compare differences between two independent groups (children living in institutional foster care vs. family foster care). To assess potential correlations regarding the child and caregivers’ capacity to mentalize, Spearman correlations (ρ) are conducted. To examine the secondary outcome, apart from the methods previously outlined, we will also utilize qualitative thematic analysis.DiscussionThe present study uses the current research concept of mentalization to identify affective and cognitive abilities of the caregiver-child dyad with the aim of compensating deficits on both sides with psychological-psychotherapeutic strategies. There are some limitations of the study to mention: the small sample size does not allow to generalize the results. Due to the lack of a comparison group, a randomized control study (RCT) was not conducted. The authors are aware of these limitations. However, the studies’ findings, will help to deduce research questions for further studies.

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Adverse childhood experiences and psychological maladjustment in adolescence: The protective role of epistemic trust, mentalized affectivity, and reflective functioning

Tironi,

Charpentier Mora,

Liotti

et al. 2024

J Clin Psychol

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IntroductionAdverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are psychosocial factors acknowledged as significant contributors to health consequences later in adolescence, including psychological maladjustment. The research suggests that, at a transdiagnostic and transtheoretical level, working on restoring epistemic trust (ET), mentalized affectivity (MA), and reflective functioning (RF) in adolescents with ACEs assumes a central role in the therapeutic process. However, there are still few studies that attempted to investigate the specific role of these sociocognitive factors in the detrimental positive association between levels of experienced ACEs during childhood and psychological maladjustment in nonclinical adolescents.MethodsA community sample of 306 Italian cisgender adolescents (61.4% assigned females at birth; age range 13–19 years old; Mage = 16.1, SD = 1.64) self‐reported ACEs (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire‐Short Form), psychological maladjustment (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), ET (Epistemic Trust, Mistrust and Credulity Questionnaire), MA (Brief‐Mentalized Affectivity Scale for Adolescence), and RF (Reflective Functioning Questionnaire). A multiple mediation regression analysis has been performed to explore the association between ACEs and psychological maladjustment through the interaction with socio‐cognitive factors.ResultsACEs are positive predictors of psychological maladjustment later in adolescence. Regardless of gender differences, epistemic mistrust and credulity, processing and expressing emotions, and uncertainty about mental states mediated this association, while epistemic trust, identifying emotions, and certainty about mental states did not configure as significant mediators.ConclusionFindings suggest that ET disruptions and deficits in RF are risk factors, while MA is a protective factor within the link between ACEs and psychological maladjustment in adolescence. These links help to specify the role of sociocognitive factors in the development of mental problems in adolescents who have been exposed to adverse experiences in childhood.

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Attachment representations and mentalizing in middle childhood across one year: A preliminary pilot longitudinal study.

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

Attachment-Based Mentalization Profiles of Iranian Children: A Mixed-Method Approach

Attachment-Based Mentalization Profiles of Iranian Children: A Mixed-Method Approach

Navigating foster care: how parental drug use and caregiver attitudes shape children’s mentalization processes—an exploratory longitudinal follow-up study: study protocol

Adverse childhood experiences and psychological maladjustment in adolescence: The protective role of epistemic trust, mentalized affectivity, and reflective functioning

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