Chapter 1.Introduction
Sections
Excerpt
What Jerome Frank (1961) wrote decades ago in his classic Persuasion and Healing remains true: “much, if not all, of the effectiveness of dif-ferent forms of psychotherapy may be due to those features that all have in common rather than to those that distinguish them from each other” (p. 232). Establishing a therapeutic alliance, for example, is critical to the success of any treatment, regardless of the clinician’s theoretical orientation (Bordin 1979; Roth and Fonagy 2005). We propose boldly that mentalizing—attending to mental states in oneself and others—is the most fundamental common factor among psychotherapeutic treatments and, accordingly, that all mental health professionals will benefit from a thorough understanding of mentalizing and from familiarity with some of its practical applications. In advancing this thesis we acknowledge that we are more invested in what’s important than what’s new.
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