Editorial: Mentalization and Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Therapy

• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12277
• Author: Jay L. Lebow

MARCH 2017 VOLUME 56 NUMBER 1

Editorial: Mentalization and Psychoanalytic Couple

and Family Therapy

JAY L. LEBOW*

Fam Proc 56:3–5, 2017

This issue includes two articles by Asen and Fonagy (2017a, b) applying mentalization

to families with histories of violence. These articles are particularly significant in two

ways. First, family violence is a pervasive problem throughout the world, and there are

few effective treatments for this damaging problem. Indeed, in some contexts, treatment

philosophies and even the law limit the implementation of couple/family therapies with

this population. Although there clearly are families in which the concern for overwhelm-

ing violence and the need for safety is such that contact with family should not be encour-

aged, guidelines for treatment and mental health law have sometimes extended this idea

well beyond the bounds in which it is advisable (George & Stith, 2014). Furthermore, as

Virginia Goldner (Goldner, Penn, Sheinberg, & Walker, 1990) long ago pointed out in the

case of intimate partner violence, many families return to contact with their abusing

members, even when therapists do not see such contact as advisable, pointing to the prac-

tical reality for such families. Fortunately, the tide is beginning to turn in the understand-

ing of the essential importance of involving family in the treatment of family violence in

most situations (Siegel, 2013). Asen and Fonagy’s approach joins other family methods

aimed at working with this problem (Goldner, 1998, 2004; Siegel, 2013; Stith, McCollum,

Amanor-Boadu, & Smith, 2012).

Yet, I would like to emphasize here the other significance of these articles. In the men-

talization approach, we see a major avenue of the development of psychoanalytic couple

and family therapy in the 21st century. Psychoanalytic concepts and methods were very

prominent in many early family therapies (Ackerman, 1968; Boszormenyi-Nagy & Spark,

1973; Stierlin, 1977) and at one time, psychoanalytic family therapy represented one of

the most frequently encountered forms of family therapy (Ackerman, 1959; Goldner, 2005;

Gurman, 1978; Paolino & McCrady, 1978; Scharff, 1989; Winawer, 1983). Almost every

early issue of Family Process featured important articles focused on this conceptual

*Family Process and Family Institute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jay L. Lebow, Family Institute at

Northwestern, 618 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail: j-lebow@northwestern.edu

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Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2017 ©2017 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12277