Publications by authors named "Fonagy P"

This study investigated the influence of parents' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) responses prior to the birth of a first child, on self-reported mental health symptoms of the first-born child in mid-adolescence. The sample comprised 51 first-born children aged 16 years, their mothers and fathers from a low-risk community urban sample, White, British and 70% middle class. Mothers' responses to the AAI were the strongest predictor of their adolescent children's self-reported mental health symptoms.

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Background: The deteriorating mental health of children and young people in the United Kingdom poses a challenge that services and policy makers have found difficult to tackle. Kailo responds to this issue with a community-based participatory and systemically informed strategy, perceiving mental health and well-being as a dynamic state shaped by the interplay of broader health determinants. The initiative works to explore, define and implement locally relevant solutions to challenges shaping the mental health and well-being of young people.

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Background: The mentalization-based perspective of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) underscores fluctuating interpersonal functionality, believed to arise from suboptimal mentalization modes, including hyper- and hypomentalizing. The connection between ineffective mentalizing and specific BPD challenges remains ambiguous. Network theory offers a unique means to investigate the hypothesis that distinct yet interconnected mental challenges ('symptoms') construct 'disorders' through their continuous mutual interactions.

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Background: The present study examines the interplay between epistemic stance, attachment dimensions, and childhood trauma in relation to specific demographic factors and mental health outcomes. This study aims to understand how these factors form distinct profiles among individuals, to identify those at risk of mental health concerns.

Method: Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was employed on a dataset from the general population (n = 500) to identify subgroups of individuals based on their epistemic stance (mistrust and credulity), attachment dimensions, and childhood trauma.

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Drawing on developmental psychopathology and thinking about the we-mode of social cognition, we propose that historical myths - be they on the scale of the family, the nation, or an ethnic group - are an expression and function of our need to join with other minds. As such, historical myths are one cognitive technology used to facilitate social learning, the transmission of culture and the relational mentalizing that underpins social and emotional functioning.

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Background: Emotion regulation is a crucial function implicated in multiple mental health disorders; understanding the mechanisms by which emotion regulation has such impact is essential. Mentalizing has been posited as a prerequisite for effective emotion regulation. The current study aims to examine the roles of epistemic trust and interpersonal problems in driving the association between mentalizing and emotion regulation, contrasting clinical and non-clinical populations.

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This article reviews an approach to working with families that grounds in systemic thinking the framework of mentalization-based treatment. Employing a mentalizing stance, this approach aims to interrupt coercive, nonmentalizing cycles of interaction within the family system and replace them with mentalizing conversations in which epistemic trust and the shared social-emotional learning of the we-mode can be generated. The process thus promoted is a spiral of shared attention and co-mentalizing, constantly lost and then recovered, in which therapist and family members learn to hear, recognize, understand, and trust one another and repair the inevitable disruptions in mentalizing and trust that allow family members to experience a way of shared knowing- the we-mode-that they can apply to communicate and solve problems both within the family system and in the broader social systems in which the family is embedded.

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This article explores the implications of epistemic trust within the mentalizing model of psychopathology and psychotherapy, emphasizing the role of the restoration of epistemic trust in therapeutic settings. At the core of this exploration is the developmental theory of mentalizing, which posits that an individual's ability to understand mental states-both their own and others'-is cultivated through early caregiver interactions. The article expands on this concept by reviewing and integrating evolutionary theories suggesting that humans have evolved a unique sensitivity to teaching and learning through ostensive cues, enhancing our capacity for cultural transmission and cooperation.

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Depression is a very common mental health problem in adolescence. Although over the past decades a number of psychological interventions for depression in adolescence have been developed and empirically evaluated, recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggest that there is considerable room for improvement of their effectiveness. This is particularly true for the treatment of adolescents with "complex" depression, that is, those where depression is embedded within broader personality and relational problems, often related to a history of attachment trauma.

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Epistemic trust - defined as readiness to regard knowledge, communicated by another agent, as significant, relevant to the self, and generalizable to other contexts-has recently been applied to the field of developmental psychopathology as a potential risk factor for psychopathology. The work described here sought to investigate how the vulnerability engendered by disruptions in epistemic trust may not only impact psychological resilience and interpersonal processes but also aspects of more general social functioning. We undertook two studies to examine the role of epistemic trust in determining capacity to recognise fake/real news, and susceptibility to conspiracy thinking-both in general and in relation to COVID-19.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ), an 18-item self-report tool that assesses parents' awareness of their child's mental states, and aims to validate it in a German context.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 378 mothers of young children using statistical methods like Confirmatory Factor Analysis to confirm the questionnaire's structure and reliability, ultimately reducing it to a 16-item version with three relevant subscales.
  • The modified German version of the PRFQ showed valid connections to factors like parental attachment and parenting stress, though its reliability could still be enhanced.
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This editorial explores how adopting a social determinants and systemic perspective can enhance preventative measures to boost the mental health of young people. It argues that to effectively elevate the mental health of young people, it is essential to tackle both the overarching influences and their specific local impacts. We maintain that a strategy combining systems thinking with evidence tailored to the local environment and participatory design is essential.

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Article Synopsis
  • Infants primarily communicate through body language before developing higher cognitive abilities, with caregiver responses significantly influencing this interaction.
  • The study emphasizes "parental embodied mentalizing" (PEM), which reflects a caregiver's ability to intuitively understand and respond to an infant's emotions and intentions through their own bodily movements.
  • A systematic review of PEM explores its theoretical underpinnings and research findings, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for future research.
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Objectives: Research has shown that children with epilepsy often experience mental health disorders but face barriers to effective care. One solution is to train healthcare professionals within paediatric epilepsy services to deliver psychological interventions. The aim of this paper was to examine aspects of treatment integrity of the 'Mental Health Interventions for Children with Epilepsy' (MICE) treatment, a modular cognitive behavioural therapy intervention for anxiety, depression and behavioural difficulties in childhood epilepsy.

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Introduction: Epistemic trust (ET), the authenticity and personal relevance we assign to interpersonally transmitted knowledge, is considered an essential component of any effective therapy. Despite its clinical significance, comprehensive empirical support is still lacking regarding whether ET is an inherent characteristic of the patient or acts as a catalyst for therapeutic change. Consequently, unlike other critical components, a clear distinction between its aspects - the patient's attributes, the therapist's contribution, and their unique therapeutic relationship - remains elusive, leaving our understanding incomplete.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study looked at how to predict if young people will commit crimes by using special computer programs called machine learning models.!
  • They tested these models on 679 kids aged 11-17 who were showing bad behavior and found that one of the models worked best at predicting future crimes.!
  • The results suggest that machine learning can help experts make better decisions about how to help these young people avoid trouble with the law.!
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Introduction: Short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy (STPP) is an evidence-based treatment for adolescents with depression, but like all treatment approaches, not all patients benefit from it. Previous investigations of the process of STPP have mostly focused on successful cases, and only a few studies have included the perspectives of young people, their parents, and therapists in the understanding of treatment non-response.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with young people who were considered "non-responders" to STPP, as well as with their parents and therapists.

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Article Synopsis
  • Previous research indicates that how well mothers understand their children's mental states (mind-mindedness) positively influences children's social development and attachment.* -
  • In a study with 62 mothers and their infants, findings showed that higher infant oxytocin levels were linked to mothers' appropriate mind-related comments and that mothers with depression used fewer of these comments.* -
  • An experiment administering nasal oxytocin to the same mothers didn't significantly change mind-mindedness levels, suggesting the need for further research on how oxytocin may affect this cognitive style in parenting.*
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Article Synopsis
  • Trauma-Focused mentalization-based treatment (MBT-TF) is designed for individuals with attachment or complex trauma, addressing symptoms like hyperarousal and relational difficulties.
  • Developed from prior research, MBT-TF focuses on the effects of trauma on mentalizing and aims to restore the ability to process experiences and build trust.
  • The treatment is group-based, lasting 6-12 months, and includes specific phases and interventions, with case examples illustrating its unique approaches and challenges faced in therapy.
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Mentalization-based interventions (MBIs) have been increasingly applied in school settings to support the social-emotional development and mental health of children and adolescents. This systematic review aimed to synthesize the evidence on the effectiveness of MBIs implemented in educational contexts for students aged 6-18 years. A comprehensive search was conducted in PsychInfo, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, and ERIC databases from inception to October 2023.

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Mentalization-based treatment (MBT) is a spectrum of interventions that share a central focus on improving the capacity for mentalizing. Although MBT was originally developed as a treatment for individuals with borderline personality disorder, its scope and focus have been broadened to become a socioecological approach that stresses the role of broader sociocultural factors in determining the closely related capacities for mentalizing and epistemic trust. This special issue brings together some of the newest developments in MBT that illustrate this shift.

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Randomized controlled trials have reported psychoanalytic psychotherapy to improve longer-term post-treatment outcomes in patients with treatment-resistant depression. In this case study, we examine the therapy process of a female trial participant diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. Structured clinical assessments indicated that the patient's level of depression remained unchanged during and after treatment.

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Background: Depression and anxiety are increasingly prevalent in adolescents. The Brief Educational Workshops in Secondary Schools Trial investigated the effectiveness of a brief self-referral stress workshop programme for sixth-form students aged 16-18 years old.

Objective: This study conducted a secondary analysis on the outcomes of participants with elevated depressive symptoms at baseline.

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