Dr. Margaret Arnd-Caddigan, PhD, LCSW is a well-loved professor of social work at East Carolina University.  Those who attended her workshop on Mentalization-Based Therapy understand why! During the two-hour introductory workshop, Dr. Arnd-Caddigan broke down the theoretical concept of mentalization (the process of becoming aware of the mental states in oneself and others), making it accessible and explaining its importance in working with hard-to-reach clients; she provided practical, process-oriented guidance for mentalizing clients and for fostering clients’ abilities to mentalize; in the final half hour, she responded to participants’ questions. She did it all with creativity, humor, authenticity, curiosity, open-mindedness (generating alternative possibilities), playfulness, and care, modeling aspects of a stance conducive for helping clients to learn to mentalize.

Following the “inspiring” (as one participant described it) workshop, many participants lined up to participate in her research on clinical intuition, an extension of her work with mentalization.

Additional feedback from the workshop included:

• Thanks so much for an enjoyable, practical and caring presentation!
• Great presentation!
• Excellent, delightful!
  
• I appreciate the presenter’s energetic and well-informed presentation!
  
• This is my first real exposure to Mentalization and I found the presentation very informative.
  
• Wish it was longer than 2 hours!
  I want to learn more about this topic. 
  
• Highly relevant topic!

For more information about integrating mentalization into clinical practice, Dr. Arnd-Caddigan recommended the book, Mentalizing in Clinical Practice (2008) by J.G. Allen, P. Fonagy, and A.W. Bateman.