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This short paper starts with a sketch of the current status of biopsychosocial medicine and of the relation between psychoanalysis and science. It claims that these two traditions and concepts in their current state can learn from each other in their shared aim of making subjective experience of patients, a central dimension of human illness and disease, a focal point of of diagnosis and therapy. The book "Mentalizing the body" by Ulrich Schultz-Venrath serves as an important example of this common learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the relationship between mentalizing theory and psychoanalysis, examining the origins of mentalization-based treatment in traditional psychoanalysis, in particular its compatibility with object relations theory, and areas of divergence, such as the different emphasis upon and management of transference. More recent developments in psychoanalytical thinking and their relationship with MBT are also considered, in particular the emphasis on process in the here and now. The paper finishes with a recognition of the work that remains to be done in relocating and rethinking MBT in relation to psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]