Von Oppen, Isabelle;
(2025)
Parental Mentalization, Maltreatment & Parenting Assessments.
Doctoral thesis (D.Psych), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
AIM: Child maltreatment is still a serious and prevalent issue that is a primary cause for children being put into care. This literature review aims to gain an expansive and synthesised understanding of the relationship between parental mentalizing and parental maltreating behaviour. It makes links to intergenerational and repetitive components of maltreating behaviour and the different mechanisms by which these patterns of abuse might occur. METHODS: A methodical search of a variety of scholarly databases was conducted for this review. It included both qualitative and quantitative research and theoretical psychoanalytic literature. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION: The immense literature on parental mentalization and maltreatment highlighted the importance of mentalization as a protective factor against maltreating behaviours. Lower parental mentalizing capacities was associated with poorer psychological well-being and higher mentalizing capacities was associated with healthier psychological well-being of both parents and children. Specifically, parents who have the capacity to revisit and mentalize their past maltreating experiences, are less likely to exhibit maltreating behaviours towards their children. Literature on the effectiveness of mentalization based treatments, neuro-imaging results and emotional regulation reinforce this notion on the importance of mentalization in potentially reducing maltreating behaviours in parents.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | D.Psych |
| Title: | Parental Mentalization, Maltreatment & Parenting Assessments |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208378 |
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