ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a closer look at the concept of mentalization and the way in which this ability comes into being. The quality of the mother-child relationship seems to play a crucial role in this respect. In the process of learning to make representations, it is important that the child is given space by another person—for example, the mother—between the direct primary experience of the affect and being able to think about the affect. At this juncture, the capacity of the mother to make her own representations is decisive for the extent to which the child “learns” this ability from her. Intrapsychic processes in the mother are formative for the degree to which a child learns to mentalize. Traumatic experiences that are unmentalized in the mother will lead to blind (unmentalized) spots in the child. They are part of the information stored on a daily basis that helps to shape the structure of the brain, leading to personality traits and possibly also to psychopathology.
