By Simon Baron-Cohen
The book takes a closer look at empathy. Especially interesting is the term 0-empathy, including 0-empathy negative and 0-empathy positive. Referring to 0-empathy negative the focus is on borderline, psychopathy and narcissism. With 0-empathy positive the focus is on Asperger syndrome. Heredity and environment are discussed in relation to all the conditions.
It is a good and rewarding book spiced with cases.
Peter Fonagy talks about the psychology of violence.
Curiousness and openness are important elements in mentalization based treatment. It’s about exploring what’s going on in the mind of others and in your own mind.
Mentalizing is among other things about understanding misunderstandings. This video is an example of a therapist doing exactly this.
The movie ”Precious” from 2009 is about young girl in the US who lives in an environment characterized by both physical and emotional neglect.
Dr. Dan Siegel explains mirror neurons and seeing the intention behind another person’s action.
This video is a brief introduction to an interesting video conference about shame with all the big theorists in the field of trauma.
The “Fight, flight, freeze model” is the last model from “The Mentalization Guidebook” we’ll share this time round. When a person is terrified, his or her reactions will largely be based on automatic reflexes outside of conscious control. The model shows the fight, flight or freeze reactions that can be constructive in a dangerous situation but will entail problems if the reactions continue after the danger has passed.
You can find all the models and read much more about mentalization in our book “The Mentalization Guidebook”. The book is a tool for professionals working with traumatized and neglected people who want to use mentalization in their work.
The second model from “The Mentalization Guidebook” we’ll share is “MacLean’s triune brain”. The model is based on human evolutionary development and describes what happens when a person is traumatized. In the model the brain is divided into a reptile brain, a mammalian brain, and a thinking brain. The model can help to understand why primitive parts of the brain often take over when a person is traumatized, and there is no access to the more rational parts of the brain.
You can find all the models and read much more about mentalization in our book “The Mentalization Guidebook”. The book is a tool for professionals working with traumatized and neglected people who want to use mentalization in their work.
The next few weeks we will share a couple of our most central models regarding trauma and Mentalization as promised to some of Janne’s students at the Anna Freud Center.
The first model “Normal reactions after having experienced something violent” explains the four normal reactions to trauma. The model is a useful visual tool when talking to children about post-traumatic stress reactions.
You can find all the models and read much more about mentalization in our book “The Mentalization Guidebook”. The book is a tool for professionals working with traumatized and neglected people who want to use mentalization in their work.
