Recovering from BPD with Mentalization-Based Therapy with Robert Drozek
4/27/20261 hr 38 min
Have you ever had a friend not text you back, and you’re certain that they’re mad at you? This is often a disruption in the process of mentalization: the ability to recognize that our thoughts and feelings might not be facts. Mentalization is a process we can all struggle with, but it’s particularly important for people who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In this episode, Forrest is joined by psychotherapist and author Robert Drozek to discuss mentalization-based treatment (MBT) and the tools that can help us develop more flexibility and curiosity around our assumptions. Bob outlines the three common modes of mentalizing, explains how childhood experiences shape mentalization, and offers a map for building healthier ways of relating to our thoughts and feelings. About our Guest: Robert Drozak is a clinical social worker, the clinical director of the Mentalization-Based Treatment Clinic at McLean Hospital, and a teaching associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His new book, Mentalization: Utilizing Reflection to Heal from Borderline Personality Disorder, is the first book about Mentalization-Based Treatment aimed at a general audience. Key Topics: 0:00: Intro: what is mentalization? 5:12: Ways mentalization can go wrong 13:25: Borderline Personality Disorder as a deficit in mentalization 22:13: How mentalization is shaped in childhood 28:54: The alien self 32:23: Developing an MBT formulation 42:03: MBT in the therapy room 54:40: Challenging your beliefs and assumptions 1:11:21: How to get out of pretend mode 1:21:37: Addressing problems with interoception 1:30:00: Recap Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Sleep Reset is offering a free 7-day trial, available only at thesleepreset.com/podcast. Start your first week of real, clinician-designed insomnia treatment tonight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsForrest Hanson· Host0:00
[gentle music] Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before, welcome back. I've been really looking forward to this episode, which I truly think is about one of the most important skills we can develop. We've all had moments in life where we jump from noticing something to just knowing what it means. Your friend took a few hours to text you back, so they're losing interest in you. Your boss gave you a critical piece of feedback, so you're probably going to be fired. You felt anxious, so there must be something to be anxious about. The conclusion is so obvious and so intuitive that there's no reason to question it. It just is. What's happening in those moments is a breakdown in what today's guest, Robert Drozek, calls mentalization, the ability to hold our own thoughts and feelings as just that, thoughts and feelings, with a lot of uncertainty around them. So Bob, thanks for joining me today. How are you doing?
Robert Drozek· Guest1:05
Wonderful. Glad to be here. Thanks, Forrest.
Forrest Hanson· Host1:07
So happy to have you on the show. Uh, we've been talking for a while about doing this. To let you know a little bit more about Bob, Bob is a clinical social worker and a psychotherapist at McLean Hospital, where he serves as clinical director of the Mentalization-Based Treatment Clinic. He's also a teaching associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and he's the author of what I think, at least, is the first book about mentalization-based