Psycho-educational training with elements of mentalization and the role it plays in reducing hostility among inmates

Abstract

According to the Social Information Processing Theory, behavior is the product of six, consecutive steps. The first two – encoding and interpreting – are crucial, as they could determine how the next steps in the process will proceed. Adequate interpretation of one’s own and other people’s behavior is possible thanks to a developed ability to mentalize. Mentalizing is an imaginative mental activity that aims to realize human behavior as intentional states of mind. Incomplete or abnormal mentalization hinders effective functioning in the social world and may, for example, increase the risk of aggressive behavior. Previous research has shown that imprisoned individuals demonstrate reduced ability to mentalize. At the same time, it is a capacity that can be developed at any stage of life. Therefore, we propose a psycho-educational workshop with elements of mentalization, we describe its course, the experience of the conductors (leaders), and the preliminary research results confirming the effectiveness of the method.