About Us
The Mentalized Affectivity Lab, based in the Clinical Psychology Department at the City College of New York, aims to advance the research and scholarship on mentalized affectivity (Jurist, 2005) a construct that captures the role of mentalization in the emotion regulation process. We are happy to share here with you our ongoing projects and publications, as well as to announce opportunities to get involved with our work.
What is Mentalized Affectivity?
Mentalization refers to the effort we put into making sense of our own and others’ actions, behavior, and internal states. Mentalized affectivity has been defined as a sophisticated form of affect regulation that entails revaluing – not just modulating – affects (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002). Specifically, the theory (Jurist, 2005) argues that affective regulation (managing, altering, or changing emotions) relies on the capacity for mentalization. And it suggests that emotions are not just adjusted in a regulatory process, but that they are also revalued in meaning. This more sophisticated aspect of emotion regulation requires the ability to reflect on one’s thoughts and feelings and to mentalize about the factors that may influence the emotion, for example childhood experiences, or the present situation or context a person is in. As a result, this helps to inform a person’s understanding about their emotions and how to anticipate future situations.
Three Components of Mentalized Affectivity
Mentalized affectivity theory proposes three delineated components that are part of a concentric process of emotion regulation.
The first is identifying an emotion; in its most basic form, this involves labeling the emotion, but it also includes more complex processes like making sense of the emotion in the context of one’s personal history and exploring the deeper meaning of the emotion (e.g., Why am I feeling this way?).
Once the emotion is identified, the second component of mentalized affectivity is processing it. Processing involves modulation/regulating the identified emotion, which includes changing the emotion in some way (such as in duration or intensity).
The third and final component, following this processing, is expressing the emotion. Expressing involves communicating one’s thoughts and emotions somewhere on a spectrum from inwardly to outwardly.