Table Of ContentMENTALIZING IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychoanalysis and Psychological Science
Elliot Jurist, Series Editor
Books in this series aim to bridge the work of researchers
and the work of clinicians. They reflect the current
empirical findings and state of the art in psychoanalysis
and psychodynamic treatment. They are written to be
practical and relevant to clinicians.
Attachment and Psychoanalysis:
Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications
Morris N. Eagle
Minding Emotions:
Cultivating Mentalization in Psychotherapy
Elliot Jurist
The Unconscious:
Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications
Joel Weinberger and Valentina Stoycheva
Treating Pathological Narcissism
with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy
Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans,
Barry L. Stern, and Otto F. Kernberg
Mentalizing in Psychotherapy:
A Guide for Practitioners
Carla Sharp and Dickon Bevington
MENTALIZING
in Psychotherapy
A Guide for Practitioners
Carla Sharp
Dickon Bevington
Foreword by Peter Fonagy
Series Editor’s Note by Elliot Jurist
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sharp, Carla, author. | Bevington, Dickon, author.
Title: Mentalizing in psychotherapy : a guide for practitioners / Carla Sharp, Dickon
Bevington ; foreword by Peter Fonagy ; series editor’s note by Elliot Jurist.
Description: New York: The Guilford Press, 2022. | Series: Psychoanalysis and
psychological science | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022020627 | ISBN 9781462549962 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Mentalization Based Therapy. | Child psychotherapy. |
BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Psychopathology / Personality Disorders | PSYCHOLOGY
/ Movements / Psychoanalysis
Classification: LCC RJ504 .S5175 2022 | DDC 618.92/8914—dc23/eng/20220610
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020627
About the Authors
Carla Sharp, PhD, is Professor in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral
Program and Associate Dean for Faculty and Research at the Univer-
sity of Houston, where she is also Director of the Adolescent Diag-
nosis Assessment Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT) Center and the
Developmental Psychopathology Lab. Dr. Sharp holds adjunct posi-
tions at University College London in the United Kingdom and the
University of the Free State in South Africa. Her work has signifi-
cantly advanced scientific understanding of personality pathology in
youth. She is a recipient of the Mid-Career Investigator Award from
the North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders
and the Award for Achievement in the Field of Severe Personality
Disorders from the Borderline Personality Disorder Resource Center.
She is past President of the International Society for the Study of
Personality Disorders and Associate Editor of the American Psycho-
logical Association journal Personality Disorders: Theory, Research,
and Treatment. Dr. Sharp has published over 300 peer-reviewed pub-
lications, chapters, and books.
Dickon Bevington, MA, MBBS, MRCPsych, is a consultant in child
and adolescent psychiatry, Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foun-
dation Trust, and Medical Director of the Anna Freud National
Centre for Children and Families, London, United Kingdom. His
v
vi About the Authors
clinical work is with high-risk and highly complex young people
with substance use disorders. At the Anna Freud Centre, along-
side his Medical Director role, Dr. Bevington is a developer of and
trainer in mentalization-based approaches, in particular co-leading
the development of Adaptive Mentalization-Based Integrative Treat-
ment (AMBIT), an award-winning approach used by teams across
the world. He was listed as one of the “Top 50 Innovators in Health”
by the Health Service Journal in 2014. Dr. Bevington has published
on and teaches AMBIT internationally. His research interests include
youth substance use disorders, implementation science, and prag-
matic approaches to whole-systems change. He is a past Fellow of the
Cambridge Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research
and Care.
Series Editor’s Note
T
his series, Psychoanalysis and Psychological Science, was created
in order to promote dialogue between researchers and practitioners.
Carla Sharp and Dickon Bevington’s book Mentalizing in Psychother-
apy: A Guide for Practitioners embodies this goal in a thoroughly
admirable way. Carla Sharp is an academic research psychologist (and
clinician) and Dickon Bevington is a psychiatrist who works on the
front lines with troubled adolescents for the National Health Service
(and is the Medical Director of the Anna Freud Centre). This book is
designed to be practical, and provides specific take-home messages
along with boxes that summarize information and highlight clini-
cal interactions in detail. The book is also a primer: it supposes no
previous familiarity with mentalization or mentalization-based treat-
ment. The authors explain the term mentalization and show how it is
a transdiagnostic mechanism of change that can be applied to other
modalities of treatment. Sharp and Bevington offer a comprehensive
look at mentalization, both as contributing to salutogenesis and, in its
absence, linked to psychopathology. They show us how to assess for
mentalization, how to work on improving it, and also how it is part of
supervision. This book is a remarkable achievement, both in leading
the mentalization paradigm forward, as Peter Fonagy argues in his
Foreword, and in conveying in clear language to the novice or anyone
who is vaguely familiar with mentalization what the construct is and
why it is such a compelling area of research and treatment.
Elliot Jurist, PhD
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