[Transference focused psychotherapy and reflective functioning]

Reflective functioning is a relatively new concept which broadly speaking, refers to the capacity to interpret human behaviours and interpersonal reactions in terms of underlying intentions and mental state motivations. This capacity is particularly important in the regulation of affects and the management of challenging interpersonal relations. In comparison to dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) and supportive therapies, transference focused psychotherapy (TFP) has been shown to have unique advantages in terms of producing improvements in RF of borderline patients. In the present article, we propose a developmental perspective for understanding how TFP produces these changes in RF. Using this perspective, we identify a number of therapeutic mechanisms through which TFP facilitate the development of RF and specifically transference interpretations.