Applied Psychology

Applied Psychology

Effectiveness of Mentalization-Based Intervention on Teacher-Student Interaction, Metaemotional Philosophy and Emotional Experiences of New Teachers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mahtab Ghanbarpour
Maryam Bordbar
Hossein Kareshki
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
10.48308/apsy.2026.243259.1967
Abstract
Aim: The purpose of this study was to validate and evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention based on mentalization and to examine its effect on teacher-student interaction, meta-emotional philosophy, and new teachers' emotional experiences.
 
Method: This Semi-experimental study was conducted in the form of a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population was all new elementary school teachers in Mashhad in the academic year 1405-04, from which 24 new teachers were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assignment into two groups of 12 each, experimental and control; the experimental group received mentalization training during eight 90-minute sessions. Both groups were assessed using the Lourdusamy, & Khine (2001) Teacher-Student Interaction Questionnaire, Ciucci et al. (2015) Metaemotional Philosophy, and Chen's Emotion Inventory (2016) in three stages: pre-test, post-test, and follow-up.
 
Results: The results of repeated-measures analysis of variance showed that mentalization training for new teachers was able to create a significant difference between the two groups in the positive teacher interpersonal behaviors (F=60.660, P<0.001), the negative teacher interpersonal behaviors (F=75.468, P<0.001), the metaemotional philosophy (F=78.225, P<0.001), and the positive (F=70.640, P<0.001) and negative (F=16.09, P<0.05) emotional experiences.
 
Conclusion: Based on the Results, it can be concluded that mentalization training can be used as an effective program to improve teacher-student interaction, metaemotional philosophy, and new teachers' emotional experiences. 
Keywords
Teacher-Student Interaction
Emotional experiences
Mentalization
Meta-Emotion
New Teachers
Subjects
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