Choosing the Conditions of Mind: Mentalizing, Committed Action, and the Problem of Agency

This paper introduces Mentalization Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (MACT), a proposed integration of mentalization-based thinking and ACT. It considers how individuals can influence the circumstances under which mentalizing remains possible, particularly when attachment activation, relational conflict, or emotional arousal threaten reflective capacity. An important contribution is counter-directional commitment, which describes deliberately moving toward dimensions of experience habitually excluded by an established relational strategy. An individual who becomes preoccupied with another person's intentions may benefit from recovering contact with their own experience, while someone who retreats into detached analysis may need greater access to feeling and interpersonal influence. MACT proposes that meaningful agency can sometimes be exercised in advance, through commitments and environmental arrangements that make reflective functioning more available when it is subsequently needed.