Mentalizing improvements of group counselling members and counsellors' interventions

This study concerns an innovative group counselling method, the Narrative Mediation Path (NMP), (Freda & Esposito, 2017) which aims to promote mentalization (Fonagy et al. 1998; Bateman & Fonagy, 2012) on underachievement among university students. The study analyzes a single NMP case with the aim of investigating whether counsellors’ interventions influence the reflective functioning (RF) of the group members and their academic performance. The transcripts of nine sessions of a single NMP were rated according to the Reflective Functioning Scale (Fonagy et al., 1998). We used a microgenetic approach (Kuhn, 1995; Siegler, 2006) to analyze the clinical sequences of the sessions for which significant changes in the RF were observed. We identified and categorized the types of counsellor’s interventions (Karterud, 2015) that seemed to improve the students' RFs most effectively. Academic performance was measured by the Academic Performance Scale (Esposito & Freda, 2016). The results indicated that most of the students improved their level of RF by mentalizing their problem of underachievement which was paralleled by improvements in academic performance. The interventions which reflect both the not knowing stance and defense interpretations of the counsellor, appeared to play a key role in developing the mentalizing capacities. Further studies are required to determine whether the results are replicable; however we discuss some of the clinical implications of counselling aimed to promote mentalization, as well as the methodological relevance of this study