AT THE HEART OF MENTALIZATION: EPISODIC AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
The present essay examines the processes of representation and symbolization that underlie mentalization in light of recent theories of episodic and autobiographical memory in cognitive neurosciences and personality psychology. It will be demonstrated that the content and organization of episodic and autobiographical repertoires, along with their pathways to certain affective brain structures, correspond to the mechanisms of mentalization and its finality. Various phenomena will be examined, such as repression and intrusive images in mentalization failures, or the emergence of meaning and of the conceptual self in more successful mentalization.