Accessible Summary What is known on the subject? • Mentalizing is the capacity to understand both one‘s own and other people‘s behaviour in terms of mental states, such as, for example, desires, feelings and beliefs. • The mentalizing capacities of healthcare professionals help to establish effective therapeutic relationships and, in turn, lead to better patient outcomes. What this paper adds to existing knowledge? • The personal factors positively associated with the mentalizing capacities of healthcare professionals are being female, greater work experience and having a more secure attachment style. Psychosocial factors are having personal experience with psychotherapy, burnout, and in the case of female students, being able to identify with the female psychotherapist role model during training. There is limited evidence that training programmes can improve mentalizing capacities. • Although the mentalization field is gaining importance and research is expanding, the implications for mental health nursing have not been previously reviewed. Mental health nurses are underrepresented in research on the mentalizing capacities of healthcare professionals. This is significant given that mental health nurses work closest to patients and thus are more often confronted with patients‘ behaviour compared to other health care professionals, and constitute a large part of the workforce in mental healthcare for patients with mental illness. What are the implications for practice? • Given the importance of mentalizing capacity of both the patient and the nurse for a constructive working relationship, it is important that mental health nurses are trained in the basic principles of mentalization. Mental health nurses should be able to recognize situations where patients‘ lack of ability to mentalize creates difficulties in the interaction. They should also be able to recognize their own difficulties with mentalizing and be sensitive to the communicative implications this may have.
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Our study shows a steady increase in dementia- and DHT-related publications, particularly in areas such as mobile health, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and sensor-based technologies interventions. This increase underscores the importance of systematic approaches and interdisciplinary collaborations, while identifying knowledge gaps, especially in lower-income regions. It is crucial that researchers worldwide adhere to evidence-based medicine principles to avoid duplication of efforts. This analysis offers a valuable foundation for policy makers and academics, emphasizing the need for an international collaborative task force to address knowledge gaps and advance dementia care globally.
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Objective: This article explores the use of experiential knowledge by traditional mental health professionals and the possible contribution to the recovery of service users. Design and Methods: The review identified scientific publications from a range of sources and disciplines. Initial searches were undertaken in databases PsycINFO, PubMed, and Cochrane using specific near operator search strategies and inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Fifteen articles were selected. These were published in a broad range of mental health and psychology journals reporting research in western countries. In the selected articles, a varying conceptualization of experiential knowledge was found, differing from therapeutic self-disclosure embedded in psychotherapeutic contexts to a relational and destigmatizing use in recovery-oriented practices. Nurses and social workers especially are speaking out about their own experiences with mental health distress. Experiential knowledge stemming from lived experience affects the professional’s identity and the system. Only a few studies explored the outcomes for service users’ recovery. Conclusion: A small body of literature reports about the use of experiential knowledge by mental health professionals. The mental health system is still in transformation to meaningfully incorporate the lived experience perspective from traditional professionals. There is little data available on the value for the recovery of service users. This data indicates positive outcomes, such as new understandings of recovery, feeling recognized and heard, and increased hope, trust, and motivation. More research about the meaning of experiential knowledge for the recovery of service users is desirable.
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