Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children: A Time-Limited Approach

by Nick Midgley PhD, Karin Ensink, Karin Lindqvist, Norka Malberg, Nicole Muller

Overview

Transform the way children understand themselves and others.

Mentalization—the ability to make sense of one’s own mind and the minds of others—is fundamental to developing emotional resilience, self-regulation, and successful relationships. Now in its second edition, this book presents mentalization-based treatment for children (MBT-C), a transdiagnostic, time-limited therapeutic approach designed to help children and their parents navigate emotional and behavioral difficulties, from anxiety and depression to interpersonal struggles.

MBT-C blends psychodynamic principles, attachment theory, and empirical research on mentalization to provide practical, evidence-based strategies for clinicians. Written by an international team of pioneering clinician-researchers, this fully updated second edition guides practitioners through the entire process of MBT-C, from assessment and case formulation to therapy termination.

This edition contains a promising new assessment tool, new theory and research on the interrelated aspects of trauma and culture, and groundbreaking findings from the first clinical trial of time‑limited MBT‑C for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433844980
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Publication date:	03/17/2026
Edition description:	Second
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Midgley, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and professor of psychological therapies with children and young people at University College London and the Anna Freud Centre in London, where he is the director of the Child Attachment and Psychological Therapies Research Unit. Nick has been involved in the development of mentalization-based treatments for children and families and has a particular interest in evaluating therapy for children in foster care.

Karin Ensink, PhD, is a professor of child and adolescent psychology at the University Laval in Quebec, Canada, and teaches mentalization-based therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy with children, adolescents, and parents. She completed her PhD under the direction of Mary Target and Peter Fonagy. Her research and clinical work focuses on the development and assessment of mentalization in children, adolescents, and parents. She has a particular interest in understanding failures of mentalization in the context of parent-child interactions, and in how these failures relate to psychopathology, personality, and treatment.

Karin Lindqvist, MSc, is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with a PhD in clinical psychology from Stockholm University. She is trained in mentalization-based work with children (MBT-C) and parents at the Erica Foundation in Stockholm. Karin’s research concerns different areas of psychodynamic psychotherapy with children, adolescents, and adults.

Norka Malberg, PhD, is an adult, child, and adolescent psychoanalyst and psychotherapist who trained at the Anna Freud Centre in London and the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute in New Haven, Connecticut. She obtained her clinical doctorate at University College London. She is an assistant clinical professor at Yale’s Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut, and clinical instructor at the Fundación Vidal y Barraquer Institute of Ramon Lllul University in Barcelona, Spain. She is the founder and director of IMAGINA: Centro de Aplicaciones de la Mentalización in Barcelona, Spain, a teaching and private practice organization.

Nicole Muller, MSc, is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and family therapist at Centrum Hecht in Holland, a specialist centre for the treatment of children, youth, and their families with attachment and trauma problems. She is a mentalization-based treatment (MBT) practitioner with children and young people (CYP) and a supervisor and trainer for the Anna Freud Centre in London. With her colleagues, she runs Centrum Hecht Opleidingen in Holland, a training center specializing in MBT-CYP.  She has written many articles on MBT and is co-editor of Mentalization-Based Treatment for Developmental Trauma: A Casebook for Working with Children and Their Families (2025).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.
Foreword
By Peter Fonagy

Introduction: Why We Developed Time-Limited MBT for Children
Part I. Theoretical Framework and Evidence Base
Chapter 1. The Development of Mentalizing
Chapter 2. When the Capacity for Mentalizing Is Underdeveloped or Breaks Down
Chapter 3. The Evidence Base for MBT
Part II. The Therapeutic Approach
Chapter 4. The Structure and Aims of Time-Limited MBT-C
Chapter 5. The “Therapist Stance”
Chapter 6. The Process of Assessment
Chapter 7. Working With Children on the Building Blocks of Mentalizing
Chapter 8. Working With Children on Explicit Mentalizing and Breakdowns in Mentalizing
Chapter 9. Working With Parents From a Mentalization-Based Framework
Chapter 10. Moving Toward Goodbye: Endings in Time-Limited MBT-C
Chapter 11. A Case Study 
Conclusion: Looking Forward
References
Appendix A. Measures of Mentalization in Children and Parents
Appendix B. The MBT-C Adherence Scale
About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

For those readers whose time is limited, allow me to simplify this review: this book is the best manualized therapy book I have ever read. You should stop reading this review and start reading the actual book.

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children succinctly and systematically elucidates therapeutic concepts, principles, and interventions within a psychodynamic framework highly relevant to clinicians, researchers, and students of psychology.

PsycCRITIQUES

For those readers whose time is limited, allow me to simplify this review: this book is the best manualized therapy book I have ever read. You should stop reading this review and start reading the actual book.” —Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

“Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children succinctly and systematically elucidates therapeutic concepts, principles, and interventions within a psychodynamic framework highly relevant to clinicians, researchers, and students of psychology.” —PsycCRITIQUES

From the Publisher