Mentalization-Based Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder with Robert Drozek

In this episode, Rose Skeeters welcomes Bob Drozek, a leading expert in mentalization-based treatment (MBT), to discuss how understanding and improving mentalizing can support hope and recovery from borderline personality disorder (BPD). Listeners will gain insights into the foundational concepts of MBT and practical strategies for fostering better emotional and relational health.

Key topics:

• ​Mentalization explained: Accessing, reflecting, and understanding mental states in oneself and others (00:00:41)
• ​The importance of mentalization in everyday life and therapy (00:55:27)
• ​How trauma, rejection, and intense emotions disrupt mentalizing abilities (01:26:00)
• ​The role of psychical equivalence mode—certainty about negative self-beliefs— in BPD (05:03:00)
• ​Differences between skills-based therapies like DBT and relational, reflective approaches like MBT (13:42:00)
• ​The structure of MBT treatment: Formulation, collaborative development, and tailored strategies (16:19:00)
• ​Tools to assess and enhance self-awareness, including worksheets for identifying mentalizing strengths and vulnerabilities (19:00:00)
• ​The certainty toolkit and overcoming rigid beliefs about oneself and others (21:16:00)
• ​Building empathy: Overcoming empathic deficits related to shame and self-criticism (31:00:00)
• ​Navigating unstable self-identity through perspective-taking and understanding emotional validation (38:06:00)
• ​Success stories of MBT applying to real-world recovery, reducing self-harm, and improving relationships (45:30:00)

Resources & Links

Purchase Mentalization Workbook here: https://a.co/d/0dIkE170

Access Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/MentalizationBook

Worksheets: https://global.oup.com/booksites/content/9780198916857/

Contact Bob Drozek here: rdrozek@mclean.harvard.edu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertdrozek/

MBT Boston—an organization that Bob Drozek co-founded that offers training and supervision to clinicians across the world in MBT: www.mbtboston.com/

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**This episode is colloquial not clinical, using personal anecdotes to support conveying information in an informal, relatable way**

Thank you to Noah Esreal for sharing his latest song with us, Now Knowing This. If you liked the clip in the beginning of this episode, you can find the whole song at the end of the episode.