Transcription
[Music] mentalization is not a new concept, but uh, in fact, uh, it was uh, particularly uh, intensively used in the 19th century, around 1880. Um, the effort uh, that the mind made was called mentalizing, and the word actually came into language in the 16th, 17th century. Uh, it has been around. We started using it, um, along with neuroscientist colleagues, uh, the uh, late 1980s, uh, to describe the effort that an individual makes to understand other people in terms of their thoughts, their feelings, their wishes, their beliefs, their desires, what goes on between their ears, their subjective world.
If you start understanding behavior in terms of the feelings or the thoughts that give rise to it, it gives you a sense of meaning. That behavior becomes meaningful. And of course, the same processes apply to one's own behavior. Why do we start using it just then? Well, um, neuroscience progressed, and we realized that there were particular parts of the brain that actually were devoted just for this function, just to understand behavior in terms of mental state. So it was kind of, it was a thing. It was something that perhaps we needed to consider. We were the first group, uh, in London, to apply that notion, um, to how parents understood their children. That you can understand a child in terms of the thoughts, the feelings, the wishes, the beliefs, the desires that the child has, that might explain to you why the child behaves in that way. That understanding will determine your attitude towards the child.
If you think that a child who, um, I don't know, whose face is just covered in chocolate and uh, looking at you and uh, kind of tentatively, uh, child maybe of one, the first birthday, and they're looking at you having just dipped that entire face in the chocolate cake that you have, you, you have made, and you, uh, look back, how you interpret the child's actions, whether that's something that they did for fun and you laugh along with them, or you see that child doing that just because they wanted to ruin the whole birthday celebration and not appreciate how much effort that you have made, how you conceive of the child's behavior will entirely determine your reaction. And the child is looking at you, trying to understand the meaning of their actions in your reactions. So in that little interchange, there are two people, each trying to read each other's minds. And it happens in a flash, in the blink of an eye. Um, how your intuitive understanding of the child, and how the child's intuitive understanding of your reaction, can make that interaction something that's joyful, that's uh, uh, something that uh, is a memory that will stay with you for the rest of your life, and something that you remind, remind the child of. Or it's something that uh, becomes a source of anxiety for the child, that they don't know that what they do may be uh, met with uh, uh, disapproval, and their intention is not recognized. It always becomes spontaneity will always be a source of threat.
Some parents, uh, struggle a little bit more, uh, with seeing the child as the child is, the child's genuine thoughts, genuine feelings, genuine beliefs, genuine desires behind their action. And they are more likely to put their ideas about what the child might be trying to do, uh, into the child, onto the child. And that may sometimes, uh, be unhelpful. I don't think that anybody does that on purpose. Um, sometimes I know that I, as a parent, sometimes I get tired. When I get tired, or when I get anxious, uh, I'm much more likely to jump to conclusions, uh, about my child and misunderstand. And to be honest, probably I get a child right, and this is somebody talking who prides themselves on his his sensitivity, about 50% of the time. But I think that actually is probably extremely healthy for the child, because they get used to, if they got used to in their interaction with you, they got used to them being perfectly understood all the time, that wouldn't prepare them, uh, for life.
I think there are very important elements to understanding the impact of modern culture, modern society, on child raring from the point of view of mentalizing, because what mentalizing as an approach highlights is the critical nature of the relationship between child and parent. That the child is looking to find themselves, their subjectivity, in the mind of an adult who is there for them exclusively, uh, because of the nature of that relationship, being an attachment relationship. Replacing that adult with any kind of generic stimulus, like a television or something, uh, that's presented by the media, is potentially catastrophic, because it will not have the opportunity within it to enable the child to recognize themselves. And if we think that that's important, and I personally think it is the most important thing, then there is a very profound risk. I think I've got two or three pieces of evidence that speak to that. Uh, the first is, um, uh, from much later in development, that what we've now recognized is that in adolescence, but in, uh, certainly after age 11 or 12, uh, children's primary socializing agents are other children. They encounter very few adults. And I think this has led to substantial problems, like, increase of anxiety in girls, and increase of self-harm, whole range of difficulties.
I think there is also evidence that the more we have focused in early childhood as an area of concern, that children from the youngest age needed to be recognized as children, as individuals, the more benefit that we can see in terms of, uh, 10 years later, those adolescents being less violent. Uh, a very good example of that is, in England, where a, a government coming in, putting a great deal of money into early childhood interventions, led, 10 years later, a decline of violent crime. Um, um, I think thirdly, uh, and perhaps to me, most importantly, um, the amount of time that a parent spends with the child is less important than the quality of that time. And we know hell of a lot about that. And the quality of that time is not so much to do with quality of happy time or good time or pleasant time. It's to do with the parent being there to help the child solve the problems that they on their own feel unable to solve. So it's, to me, problem-solving time. So it's young children being able to turn to an adult who's there for them with the problems that they experience from within. If that channel can be preserved, then the quality of the relationship between the parent and the child will fulfill its evolutionary function. If that is missed, then that person, that little person, will find it less safe to turn to others around them to help them with the problems that they will have throughout their life. So to me, it is opening the child's mind up to solutions to their problems being found in the social network around them. That is what we want to establish in the early years. If we fail young children in that, by overemphasis in the media, by neglect, a whole range of, uh, other things, I think we will make the child more rigid, more closed off, less flexible, less adaptable, less willing to learn. And after all, it is for learning that we've been put on this planet. We are just teaching and learning machines.
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