Therapeutic Mentalization in Group Therapy: Development and Preliminary Validation of a Measure of Experienced Mentalization

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Our paper reports on the development and psychometric properties of the Therapeutic Mentalization Scale for Group Therapy (TMS-GT). The TMS-GT is an 11-item self-report measure designed to assess individuals’ experiences of having been mentalized in group therapy. Two combined samples of adults (n = 157; Mage = 28.4, SD = 12.1) participating in separate outpatient group psychotherapy treatments completed the TMS-GT posttreatment, with a subsample (n = 87) completing the TMS-GT again 3 months later and the other subsample (n = 70) completing measures of group psychotherapy processes and psychiatric symptoms. Multilevel exploratory factor analysis identified the two-factor structure of the TMS-GT, reflecting two dimensions of the experience of having been mentalized: mentalized attunement and mentalized continuity. The two subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and temporal stability. Moreover, additional psychometric findings provided further support for the validity of the TMS-GT. Overall, preliminary analyses suggest that the TMS-GT appears to be a reliable and valid measure of the experience of being mentalized among adults participating in outpatient group therapy.