Potter, Shannon;
(2024)
Epistemic stance, mentalizing and adolescents’ perception of the therapeutic alliance.
Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
AIM: Disruptions to attachment security and mentalizing difficulties have been posited as key transdiagnostic factors underlying psychological difficulty. No existing review has examined the literature which explores how attachment and mentalizing interact in a clinical population. This review provides a quantitative synthesis of the strength and direction of the associations between attachment styles and mentalizing ability. METHOD: A systematic search of the literature was conducted to identify studies which examined the constructs of attachment security and mentalizing ability in clinical samples. The electronic databases: Web of Science, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, and PubMed were searched. Meta-analyses were used to provide an estimation of the effect size of the relationship between mentalizing and both insecure attachment and secure attachment, in a clinical population. RESULTS: The search revealed fifteen studies that met inclusion criteria. Secure attachment was positively associated with higher mentalizing abilities (r = 0.31), while evidence was not found for the association between insecure attachment and mentalizing ability. Substantial heterogeneity was also revealed between studies. In exploring this heterogeneity, the significant influence of the type of mentalizing measure used was revealed and inconsistencies in the operationalisation of attachment were highlighted. CONCLUSION: The significant finding here draws attention to positive associations between mentalizing and attachment security in a clinical sample – an area that tends to receive less consideration in literature, compared to attachment insecurity. This review also underscores methodological inconsistencies related to attachment and mentalizing constructs, which will be important to refine as part of future research.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | D.Clin.Psy |
| Title: | Epistemic stance, mentalizing and adolescents’ perception of the therapeutic alliance |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197903 |
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