Mentalization and Its Multidimensional Nature

Aim and Background: The concept of mentalization as a purely human capacity refers to the understanding of one's own and others' psychological processes, which in 4 dimensions forms the basis of one's daily interactions. Today, this basic psychological process has been considered in all major mental disorders. In this study, a summary review of the concept and multidimensional nature of mentalization has been studied. Methods and Materials: This review study was conducted in December 2020 from indexed articles on mentalization and its four dimensions in PubMed Databases (SID), Scientific Information Database, Google Scholar, Scopus using related key words such as: Mentalization، Automatic mentalizing، Controlled mentalizing، Cognitive mentalizing، Affective mentalizing. Findings: Neuroscientists have identified four components or different dimensions of mentalization: 1. automatic mentalizing versus controlled mentalizing 2. Self- mentalizing versus another mentalizing 3.Internal mentalizing versus external mentalizing 4.Cognitive mentalizing versus Affective mentalizing which indicates different social cognitive processes and different forms of mental illness can be explained as an imbalance in these dimensions. Conclusions: Applications of mindfulness and treatment based on it indicate the treatment of several different mental health disorders Such as psychosis, depression, eating disorders as well as personality disorders. This model is applicable to a wide range of contexts and conditions, such as parenting, couple therapy, family therapy, art therapy, and services to help some of the most vulnerable, and social contexts such as schools and even prisons.