Reflective function: A move to the level of concern

Benbassat, Naomi

doi:10.1177/0959354320934182

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…Perhaps interventions to promote RF are needed for those in power-for the factory owners and managers-to assist them to hold their employees in mind regarding their work conditions and policies for returning mothers. Unsupportive social systems need to be interrogated and challenged through advocacy work, employing mentalization-based interventions to widen our circles of concern (Benbassat, 2020). Specifically, putting energies into creating a ''cultural context in which it is reasonable to expect to have one's thoughts and feelings taken into account'' (Campbell & Allison, 2022, p. 208).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I wonder if you will be sad?”: Employing the concept of mentalization psychosocially with low-income mothers

Young,

Sweeney

2024

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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We demonstrate the value of a rapprochement between psychoanalytic work aimed at supporting marginalized mothers and discursive accounts of low-income mothers, providing a psychosocial analysis of data from an interview study with six low-income South African mothers. Employing discourse analysis, we show how instrumental mothering is a dominant and precarious construction in these mothers’ talk. We use the concept of mentalization to track the affective work that accompanies the interactional emergence of this instrumental mothering discourse in a particular interview encounter. The implications of the research are discussed in the light of increasing demands for sociocultural responsive research and clinical practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I wonder if you will be sad?”: Employing the concept of mentalization psychosocially with low-income mothers

Young,

Sweeney

2024

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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“…Connolly (2003), in this context, succinctly links the inability to tolerate differences with the experience of terror and tyranny. Benbassat (2020) notes that insufficient development of mentalization is closely related to the tendency to unethical, domineering behaviour, while the predictor of ethical and moral behaviour is well‐developed mentalization.…”

Section: Mentalization Of War‐induced Trauma and Totalitarian State O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

War: Mentalization and Totalitarian State of Mind

Semkiv

2024

J Analytical Psychology

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For most residents of Europe, war is a new experience in which they find themselves both as witnesses and participants. In this paper the war in Ukraine serves as an illustration and case example. Like any unfamiliar experience, war elicits profound emotional responses which can be so overwhelming that an individual may be unable to fully process them and to create mental representations of the reality of war. When the psyche becomes entrapped in an unprocessed state, without the capacity to derive meaning from it, this results in the “fossilization” of the psyche akin to what McGinley and Segal describes as a totalitarian state of mind. Subjectivity and individual differences come under collective or personal attack, or both. This state of being prioritizes the needs of the collective psyche over the individual psyche. The image of Gorgon Medusa, who transformed living people into “fossilized” ones, is presented as a metaphor of total identification with the collective dimension. In contrast, the psyche can reveal a creative approach to resolving war‐induced trauma. This is depicted in the concept of the Alchemical Stone and its creation, which symbolizes a harmonious connection between the external and internal realms, the subjective and objective experiences, and the real and the imaginal dimension.

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“…A longitudinal path analysis in Canada (n = 385) found that maternal cognitive sensitivity (e.g., parental ability to cognitively stimulate their child) mediated the association between maternal RF (referred to as maternal 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.995426 reflective capacity), measured when children were 18 months old, and 4-year-old children's executive functioning, theory of mind, and receptive language (Wade et al, 2018). Studies have also reported that maternal RF is positively associated with school-aged children's RF (Ensink et al, 2015;Rosso and Airaldi, 2016), and as RF demands cognitive abilities, such as perceiving and processing mental states and emotions (Slade, 2005;Benbassat, 2020), the results of these studies support a link between maternal RF and children's cognitive abilities.…”

Section: Parental Reflective Function and Children's Cognitive Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between maternal reflective function and preschool children’s cognitive abilities

Komanchuk

Dewey²,

Giesbrecht³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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Children’s cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory) are associated with mental health, adaptive behaviors, and academic achievement, and may be enhanced by parental reflective function (i.e., capacity to reflect on mental states, feelings, thoughts, and intentions in one’s child and oneself). We evaluated associations between maternal reflective function and children’s cognitive abilities alone and while controlling for parent-child attachment and interaction quality, and psychosocial (i.e., maternal depressive symptoms, adverse childhood experiences) and sociodemographic (e.g., socioeconomic status) factors. Our sample, recruited in Canada, was primarily white and included 73 mothers and their 4–5 year old preschool children. Maternal reflective function was measured with the Reflective Functioning Scale applied to the Parent Development Interview and the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses revealed that maternal reflective function was associated with children’s cognitive abilities. The Parent Development Interview rated child-reflective function was associated with children’s higher verbal comprehension alone and while adjusting for covariates (e.g., parent-child interaction quality, socioeconomic status), and the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire Interest and Curiosity with higher verbal comprehension while adjusting for parent-child interactions and attachment pattern. The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire Certainty in Mental States was associated with higher working memory scores for children while adjusting for covariates. Full Scale IQ and Visual Spatial Index were not significantly associated with maternal reflective function. Associations were found between secure and disorganized attachment with higher verbal comprehension and lower working memory, respectively. These findings highlight the importance of high maternal reflective function to cognitive abilities in early childhood.

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Reflective function: A move to the level of concern

Cited by 5 publications

References 118 publications

“I wonder if you will be sad?”: Employing the concept of mentalization psychosocially with low-income mothers

“I wonder if you will be sad?”: Employing the concept of mentalization psychosocially with low-income mothers

War: Mentalization and Totalitarian State of Mind

Association between maternal reflective function and preschool children’s cognitive abilities

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