Working with at-risk mental states in adolescence

Data collected in recent years on the work with this group of young people supports the existing evidence that demonstrates the relationship between suffering adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and a greater psychopathological risk, as well as the relationship between ACEs of adolescents with the fact that their parents also suffered ACEs in their own childhood. Deficits in parents' mentalizing inhibit their capacity to provide an experience of mutuality and thoughtful curiosity about their children's internal experience of relationships. The parents' inability to regulate their own affective states creates an unpredictable and inconsistent relational environment for them to grow up in. Mentalizing is a capacity that is very easily overwhelmed and is never entirely stable, consistent or one-dimensional. Early experiences of marked mirroring facilitate the development of mentalizing and what is known as the secondary representation of the child's experience in their own mind.