About this Research Topic
Parental mentalization refers to the capacity of parents to think about their own and their child’s behaviors in the context of mental states. Higher parental mentalizing capacity is associated with better caregiving quality and more secure attachment in children. In addition, the level of parental mentalizing may play an important role in explaining the intergenerational transmission of attachment security and children’s socio-emotional development more generally. Intervention research has shown that mentalization-based work with at-risk parents have a greater potential to enhance parent-child interactions and greater attachment security in comparison with psycho-educational approaches.
Despite parental mentalization being a core theme of clinical work, it remains a relatively new construct in the scientific literature, with many exciting avenues for research. Due to demanding and time-consuming methodology in the measurement of parental mentalization, sample sizes in empirical research have been limited. Therefore, there is a great need to develop more feasible, but accurate, measures of parental mentalization that can be scaled to large sample sizes. There is also significant heterogeneity in measures of parental mentalization that have primarily focused on mothers, and not fathers, limiting the generalization of this work. With respect to intervention studies, more use of controlled research designs, especially RCT designs. More longitudinal follow-up studies are also needed. It is also important to broaden the focus of child developmental outcomes, including empathy and their own capacity to mentalize. Our goal is to showcase the most essential advances and research projects currently going on in the field of parental mentalization.
This Research Topic offers an opportunity to publish high-quality empirical (both qualitative and quantitative) and meta-analytical articles focusing on the links a) between parental prenatal and postnatal mentalization and other aspects of parenting, and b) between parental mentalization and child developmental outcomes (child behavioral, socio-emotional, self-regulation outcomes). In addition, we welcome theoretical papers on mentalization and related constructs. We welcome original studies focusing on both mothers and fathers and on the impact of parental mentalization on child development. Studies using longitudinal follow-up designs, and studies using RCT design are especially welcome. Studies including new research methods and the validation of new assessments on parental mentalization are also relevant, as well as intervention research with at-risk parents.
Despite parental mentalization being a core theme of clinical work, it remains a relatively new construct in the scientific literature, with many exciting avenues for research. Due to demanding and time-consuming methodology in the measurement of parental mentalization, sample sizes in empirical research have been limited. Therefore, there is a great need to develop more feasible, but accurate, measures of parental mentalization that can be scaled to large sample sizes. There is also significant heterogeneity in measures of parental mentalization that have primarily focused on mothers, and not fathers, limiting the generalization of this work. With respect to intervention studies, more use of controlled research designs, especially RCT designs. More longitudinal follow-up studies are also needed. It is also important to broaden the focus of child developmental outcomes, including empathy and their own capacity to mentalize. Our goal is to showcase the most essential advances and research projects currently going on in the field of parental mentalization.
This Research Topic offers an opportunity to publish high-quality empirical (both qualitative and quantitative) and meta-analytical articles focusing on the links a) between parental prenatal and postnatal mentalization and other aspects of parenting, and b) between parental mentalization and child developmental outcomes (child behavioral, socio-emotional, self-regulation outcomes). In addition, we welcome theoretical papers on mentalization and related constructs. We welcome original studies focusing on both mothers and fathers and on the impact of parental mentalization on child development. Studies using longitudinal follow-up designs, and studies using RCT design are especially welcome. Studies including new research methods and the validation of new assessments on parental mentalization are also relevant, as well as intervention research with at-risk parents.
Keywords: Mentalization, reflective functioning, parenting, child development, intervention
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