An MBT therapist practises mentalization-based treatment, developed by Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy specifically for borderline personality disorder. Mentalizing describes the ordinary human capacity to hold in mind what you and other people around you are thinking and feeling, a capacity most people rely on constantly without noticing it.
When mentalizing collapses
For people with borderline personality disorder, this capacity tends to collapse under emotional pressure, which is often exactly when relationships break down and impulsive decisions get made, since the ability to consider another person's likely perspective, or even one's own more settled perspective, disappears at the moment it is most needed.
Building the capacity, not just coping skills
Rather than teaching coping techniques to manage a crisis once it has already started, MBT works to build and stabilise the underlying capacity to mentalize in the first place, so that emotional pressure is less likely to cause the same collapse over time. It is usually delivered as a structured programme combining individual and group sessions, and is recommended by NICE for borderline personality disorder, reflecting a solid and growing evidence base for this way of working.