Mentalizing Underachievement in Group Counseling: Analyzing the Relationship between Members' Reflective Functioning and Counselors’ Interventions.

This study concerns an innovative group counseling method, the Narrative Mediation Path (NMP), which aims to promote mentalization on underachievement among university students. The study analyzes a single NMP case with the aim of investigating whether counselor’s 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. We used a microgenetic approach to analyze the clinical sequences of the sessions, for which significant changes in the RF were observed. We identified and categorized the types of counselor’s interventions that seemed to improve the students' RFs most effectively. Academic performance was measured by the Academic Performance Scale. The results indicated that most of the students improved their level of RF by mentalizing their problem of underachievement while also improving academic performance. The interventions, which reflect both the not-knowing stance and defense interpretations of the counselor, appeared to play a key role in developing the mentalizing capacities. We discuss the relevance of these findings for the more "interpretative" role of clinicians in mentalizing interventions and the need of further studies to determine whether the results are replicable.