L'operazionalizzazione di un'analogia: la mind-mindedness e la reverie

This paper suggests that the construct of mind-mindedness, developed by the developmental psychologist E. Meins (1997), in order to describe a parent’s ability to interpret her child’s internal states in terms of intentionality, can evoke Bion’s maternal reverie analogy. The coding scheme for evaluating mind-mindedness from parents’ descriptions of their child or from explicit comments made while engaged in dyadic play can also in part be considered an operationalisation of mothers’ abilities to transform their children’s states by rendering them less concrete. The theoretical origins of mind-mindedness and the coding scheme will be discussed, as well as main research findings and the substantial differences from psychodynamic theories in general, and more specifically, Bion’s concept.