Mentalizing Connections: Engaging Deeply: How Mentalizing Facilitates Trust & Openness in Therapy Relationships
Presented by:
Interim CEO and Chief Clinical Officer
Lindner Center of Hope
Description:
The ways we attend to and respond to each other, especially when in distress, plays a critical role in shaping trust. When we are tuned in and emotionally responsive to others, the promise of feeling genuinely known and understood grows for those met by our curiosity, care, and interest. This presentation explores how ongoing attunement and responsiveness, facilitated by a mentalizing stance, positively impacts the development of trust while enhancing one’s own and others’ reflective capacities. Participants will learn how attunement fosters connection and supports emotional awareness, and conversely, how neglect and invalidation undermines resilience, interpersonal trust, and the ability to flexibly understand one’s own and others’ mental states. Through practical insights, this session examines how a mentalizing stance promises to provide others the safety to risk increased vulnerability and to be open to influence–essentials for a durable and beneficial treatment relationship.
Learning Objectives:
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Define mentalizing and response dynamics, and explain the concept of mentalizing and how misattuned, invalidating, inaccurate, or otherwise emotionally disengaged responses negatively impact interpersonal interactions and affect emotional development.
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Identify the role of attunement in trust-building, and describe how attunement and misattunement affect an individual’s ability to develop trust, particularly in early developmental stages and in therapeutic settings.
- Examine the psychological effects of invalidation and neglect, and identify the effects of invalidation and neglect on mental health and emotional resilience, and understand their long-term implications on trust in relationships.
- Apply mentalizing and attunement principles in practice, and develop practical strategies for enhancing attunement and responsiveness to foster a sense of safety, trust, and open communication in therapeutic relationships.
About the Series:
Join your peers for a six-part webinar series, presented by Ellenhorn and the Mentalizing Initiative, featuring speakers from Ellenhorn, the Mentalizing Initiative, Silver Hill Hospital, and Lindner Center of Hope.
This three-month series will feature thought leaders and mentalization-based treatment (MBT) experts from esteemed organizations, providing a comprehensive exploration of MBT. Explore how MBT goes beyond skill-based approaches like DBT by fostering reflective capacities and promoting lasting self-awareness and relational stability. Led by thought leaders and experts from esteemed organizations, each session will illuminate how mentalization can be applied across therapy, leadership, and education to strengthen connections with self and others.
Why Attend?
-Earn CE Credits: Gain 1.0 CE credit per one-hour session, with a total of 6.0 credits available for attending all six webinars. CE Credits for the Mentalizing Connections series are being offered by Ellenhorn. (Silver Hill Hospital is not managing CE Credits or Certificates.)
-Learn from Experts: Hear from leaders in the globally practiced and empirically supported field of MBT.
-Enhance Your Practice: Learn how to integrate mentalization principles into your clinical work to foster deeper, more meaningful client outcomes.
Don’t miss this opportunity to join your peers in advancing mentalization-based approaches.
Participants will earn 1.0 CE credits for each one-hour session with a potential total of 6.0 CEs awarded upon successful completion of all six sessions.
All sessions will take place on Zoom from 3:00pm – 4:00pm ET
Full Presentation Schedule:
- Wednesday, February 12: Introductory Session – All Presenters
- Wednesday, February 26: Attachment and Reflective Function – Jeffrey Katzman, MD
- Wednesday, March 12: Engaging Deeply: How Mentalizing Facilitates Trust & Openness in Therapy Relationships – Michael Groat, PhD, MSc
- Wednesday, March 26: BPD: The Origin of MBT – Robin Kissell, MD
- Wednesday, April 9: IRL (In Real Life): Mentalizing with Teens in Mind – Natalie Brooks, MA, LMFT
- Wednesday, April 23: The Therapist in the Hot Seat: Countertransference and Using Mentalization to Cool Down – Shelly Simpson, LCSW
Series Presenters:
Clinical Director and Director of AMBIT, Ellenhorn, LLC
Executive Board Member, Mentalizing Initiative
Interim CEO and Chief Clinical Officer
Lindner Center of Hope
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Director of The Mentalizing Initiative
Director of Education, Silver Hill Hospital
Professor, University of New Mexico Department of Psychiatry
Adjunct Professor, Yale Department of Psychiatry