Reflective Functioning: Tools for Healing and Building Stronger Relationships

In this episode of Women's Mental Health Podcast, we dive deep into the powerful role of reflective functioning and how it impacts women’s mental health. Join Randi Owsley, LMSW, and Jessica Bullwinkle, LMFT, as they explore how reflective functioning helps with emotional regulation, coping with narcissistic relationships, and healing from trauma. If you’ve ever felt lost or disconnected, this episode is packed with practical insights and tools to help you understand yourself better and find your path to emotional healing. 

By developing reflective functioning skills, you can gain insight into your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Reflective functioning in therapy for women offers a supportive space to process difficult emotions, manage relationship dynamics, and cultivate stronger, healthier connections. Whether you're navigating reflective functioning for better relationships or seeking tools to cope with emotional challenges, resources like therapy and self-help guides can provide the support needed to foster emotional growth and healing. 

 In upcoming episodes of Women's Mental Health Podcast, we will explore a range of powerful topics designed to help you navigate emotional challenges and foster personal growth. We'll dive into building self-awareness through reflective functioning, offering insights on how this skill can enhance your emotional intelligence and improve relationships. Our goal is to provide you with reflective functioning techniques for women’s mental health that can empower you to understand yourself better, manage emotional difficulties, and cultivate stronger, more resilient relationships. Tune in for practical advice and resources you can use on your journey to healing and self-discovery. 

FAQs

What’s the difference between Reflective Functioning and emotional intelligence?
How can I practice Reflective Functioning in daily life?
Where can I find professional help to improve Reflective Functioning?
What is Reflective Functioning (RF)?
Why is Reflective Functioning important for mental health?
What are signs of poor Reflective Functioning?
What mental health conditions are linked to impaired Reflective Functioning?
How does low Reflective Functioning impact relationships?
Can Reflective Functioning be improved?
How does Reflective Functioning affect parenting?
#ReflectiveFunctioning #MentalHealthAwareness #WomenMentalHealth #TherapyForWomen #EmotionalHealing #MentalHealthMatters #TraumaRecovery #MindfulLiving #SelfAwareness #EmotionalRegulation #SelfDiscovery #EmotionalAwareness #MindfulHealing #MentalWellnessJourney #EmotionalResilience #TherapyTalk #HealingTools #SelfReflection #PersonalGrowthJourney #WomenInTherapy #TraumaHealing #HealingTogether #ReflectAndHea #EmotionalBalance #EmpoweredWomen 

Transcript

Randi: 0:14

Welcome back to the women's mental health podcast. I'm randy. I'm And I'm Jess. And we are two licensed psychotherapists, and this is a safe space where we talk about mental health, well being, and strategies for coping with life's challenges. And how all of this is normal, and you are not alone. If you're new to our podcast, we deep dive into mental health topics that impact women just like you. Today we're talking about something that plays a crucial role in how we navigate our relationships, emotions, and overall mental wellbeing, reflective functioning, or rf. If you've never

Jess: 0:46

heard of RF before, don't worry. It has been totally trending in ways that you would not even think of, and we're gonna go ahead and break those down for you. So find us and more information at women's mental health podcast.com. Have you ever had these thoughts? What's the difference between reflective functioning and emotional intelligence? How can I practice reflective functioning and daily life? I. Where can I find professional help to improve reflective functioning? What exactly is rf? Woo. I keep wanting to say that. Woo. Why is reflective functioning important for my mental health? What are signs that I have poor, reflective, functioning? What mental health conditions are linked to impaired reflective functioning? How does low RF

Randi: 1:33

impact relationships,

Jess: 1:34

can reflective, functioning be improved? How does RF affect parenting? We're still going back to what is rf, right? Yeah. What's the difference between reflective functioning?

Randi: 1:45

So let's start with the basics. What is reflective functioning? Essentially, it's our ability to understand our own thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and recognize that other people have their own unique thoughts, emotions, and behaviors too.

Jess: 2:00

That is huge. That is such a huge thing to go, okay, I can recognize mine and I can recognize yours. So what that essentially is called is mentalization. This is what allows us to make sense of our own experiences and to empathize with others. Not sympathize, but empathize. There's a huge difference there. It plays a huge role in how we form healthy relationships and how we cope with challenges.

Randi: 2:28

It's very important too because it helps us pause and reflect before reacting impulsively. Think about maybe when you have a disagreement with someone. If you have strong rf, you can take a step back, consider their perspective, and respond thoughtfully. And instead of reacting emotionally,

Jess: 2:46

yes, but when RF is underdeveloped or impaired, it can lead to emotional struggles, relationship conflicts, and difficulty regulating your emotions. Okay.

Randi: 2:58

Why is RF trending right now? Can we still blame it on TikTok?

Jess: 3:02

I know asking for a friend. Can I still blame this on TikTok here? So the concept of reflective functioning or rf, it emerged from psychoanalysis and attachment theory. I. Those are two theories that we use in psychology. They're not entirely new. RF is not entirely new. This started back in what, 1980s, 1990s that we started looking at that. However, there are a few reasons that it is trending right now, and these are the ones you're gonna go, ah, get it.

Randi: 3:30

So right now in social media, there's definitely an increased focus on emotional intelligence. More people are recognizing the importance of self-awareness and empathy in their mental health and their own relationships. And RF plays a key role in both.

Jess: 3:47

I love our younger generations that are just getting this. They're getting it because of social media. The other thing is that there's a growing awareness about mental health disorders. It is becoming more common that we talk about it. We're starting to get rid of The stigma.. So conditions like. Bipolar disorder, A DHD, postpartum depression. They're gaining more visibility, and so RF is being studied as a way to improve emotional regulation and relationship dynamics. I. within these mental

Randi: 4:17

health disorders. recently too, there's been a lot more talk about parenting and attachment research. There's more studies coming up on secure attachment and parenting, emphasizing how important RFS role is in understanding children's emotions and how to foster emotional security within our children,

Jess: 4:36

which is so great because I always joke that boomers didn't do this. They didn't do this to any of us, right? And so we're like, we have to learn how to do this with our children. The other one is trauma informed therapy. We are starting to work a lot more with. Noisy. We are starting to work a lot more with trauma. There's a lot of therapists that are integrating what's called MBT, which is mentalization based therapy to help individuals process trauma and strengthen reflective functioning for healthier coping.

Randi: 5:12

There's been a lot of new neuroscience and psychological research and advances in the neuroscience field are going to help continue highlight how RF supports brain function, resilience and decision making. I.

Jess: 5:26

The other is there's so much self-help and wellness trends going on that more people are engaging in mindfulness and journaling and therapy and listening to our podcast. Thank, thank you. And what this is doing, it's aligning with improving RF so we can have a better mental wellbeing.

Randi: 5:44

Also, a lot of workplaces are putting value on emotional intelligence. Employers are recognizing more and more the value of emotional intelligence and RF in those that they wanna put in leadership positions and teamwork positions, or help with conflict resolutions. So this makes it a very much sought after skill.

Jess: 6:04

There's a lot of places that'll do the like, are you an owl? Are you a peacock? Mm-hmm. Or the Six Sigma black belt, whatever. Yeah. Or

Randi: 6:12

the, even the Meyer Briggs, you know, personality test and stuff, and there's different variations of that too. And all this, that's an al Yeah. Help them give an idea of where you are in your emotional intelligence and how you would fit into a team or lead a team. But we can see that there is. A lot of diagnosis that are linked to having low rf. What are some of the common diagnosis we see with that?

Jess: 6:37

The most common is borderline personality disorder or BPD. This has difficulty understanding one's own emotions, and others' intentions. And we did a, a podcast on that a while back talking about that more. Another one is depression, because this is where the negative self-perception, the rumination, and difficulty seeing situations objectively. That's the doom and gloom. The it'll never get better. What's another one?

Randi: 7:04

Another one is PPD postpartum depression. When you struggle with understanding and responding to a baby's need or a DHD, the impulsivity can interfere with your reflection and emotional regulation. And even if you don't have a formal diagnosis, many of us can struggle with RF at times, especially when we're stressed. Sleep deprived or overwhelmed.

Jess: 7:24

Yes. It's that nervous system functioning thing that we are not paying attention to. So as women, how does all of this affect our mental health?

Randi: 7:33

if we are struggling with rf, we might misinterpret situations. I love how you say misinterpret.

Jess: 7:40

Misinterpret. You've done that before. I'm gonna leave it

Randi: 7:43

Misinterpret. Situations that lead to unnecessary stress or conflict. It can affect how we parent. Engage in relationships and even the way we talk to ourselves. Because if we don't pause, if we don't reflect we might fall into negative self-talk or assume the worst about a situation. Oh. Kinda like jump to conclusions about things because we're not taking the time to process what's happening.

Jess: 8:08

And I can totally see how this would work with a DH adhd, because not only you impulsive, but most people with A DHD also have rejection sensitivity to solve for you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so we already are taking it negatively. And then if we already have low rf, oh, I could see that. So low RF can make it harder to manage emotions. It makes it harder to maintain healthy boundaries, which are huge, and therefore making it harder to navigate. All of our lives challenges. So on the flip side though, when RF is strong, we can handle stress better, we can make more thoughtful decisions and we can foster healthier relationships'cause we have better boundaries and better emotional regulation.

Randi: 8:49

But even if you feel, if you're low on reflective functioning, there's good news. RF is a skill that can be strengthened with practice. And so we're gonna talk about some of the ways that you can improve it so you can pause before reacting. before you respond emotionally, take a deep breath and ask yourself, what else could be going on here? Or what is triggering me? Why am I upset

Jess: 9:15

or just counting to 10 before you say something out loud. Another one we talk about a lot is journaling. Whether you're junk journaling, you are journaling on, a pretty binder that you do whatever it is. Write about your thoughts and feelings'cause this can help you recognize patterns and help you develop self-awareness. And I often have clients go through and rewrite it, write it. Angry, write it. Mm-hmm. And then rewrite it. It's that whole processing

Randi: 9:43

it. Yeah. Processing it, yes. Another one is mindful practices like meditation, deep breathing, blowing bubbles, walking in nature. This makes you more aware of your thoughts your emotions not, and your physical body, but also like your emotional body too, because you're taking the time to be with yourself.

Jess: 10:04

Obviously go to therapy. We're big proponents of that one. Work with a therapist. One who works with either MBT, which is that MENTALIZATION based therapy, or CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. That's gonna help you strengthen, your

Randi: 10:19

rf. Another thing is to flip the script when you're feeling upset. Ask yourself, is there another way to see this? Or what would I tell a friend in this situation? Try to kind of like remove yourself from like the emotions of it and step back and see the other side of it. Yeah.

Jess: 10:37

Don't gaslight yourself though. Yeah. Just try to say, what would I tell my best friend in this situation? Mm-hmm. The other is practice perspective taking. Try to imagine how somebody else might be feeling in a situation which is hard. That's that whole walk in their shoes or what might be going on with them. Yeah,

Randi: 10:53

and the more that we strengthen rf, the more we improve our emotional resiliency, our emotional intelligence, which improves our relationship and our overall mental health and overall wellbeing. So again, let's deep dive into these questions. Jess. What exactly is reflective, functioning?

Jess: 11:13

Reflective, functioning or RF is also known as mentalization. It's the ability to understand and interpret. Now I'm saying interpret. Thank you. Interpret. You're welcome. I can't even say it now. Now, I don't know. Interpret. We're gonna interpret, we're gonna interpret your thoughts and feelings as well. Those of others. It helps with emotional regulation, relationships, and your own self-awareness, which is huge. So Randy, why is reflective functioning important for mental health?

Randi: 11:42

Well, we just said it. It improves your emotional regulation. It reduces your anxiety. It strengthens the relationship, not only with others, but with yourself. You learn to trust yourself more.

Jess: 11:53

Oh, that's huge. You know how many women don't like you? Get that gut, trust your gut, and you ignore it. Yeah, ignore it. And then something bad happens. You're like, you're like, oh, I should have listened

Randi: 12:01

to myself.

Jess: 12:01

Always listen to your gut.

Randi: 12:03

Jess. What are signs that we are having poor, reflective, functioning.

Jess: 12:07

Signs include difficulty understanding your emotions. Misinterpreting, I can't say it. Others' Intentions, impulsive reactions and struggles with empathy or self-awareness when you just can't understand other people or give anybody any kind of empathy, and we're not talking sympathy, but empathy. Randy, what mental health conditions are linked to impaired rf?

Randi: 12:29

Borderline personality disorder, anxiety disorders, depression disorders A DHD and postpartum depression too are some of the major ones that we see heavily impacted by impaired rf. Jess, how does low reflective functioning impact our relationships?

Jess: 12:48

It leads to misunderstandings and emotional outbursts when mom is losing her ever loving mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Difficulty setting boundaries, challenging and recognizing others' perspectives is like your way or the highway. That's it. All of those. And just again, if mom's losing her shit in the middle of the kitchen, maybe she needs to take some rest. Mm-hmm. So can reflective functioning be improved? Randy?

Randi: 13:13

Yes. Like we talked about mindfulness, journaling, therapy engaging in self-reflection exercises, resting your body. Oh, resting your nervous system. Go listen to our previous two podcasts about rest and repairing your nervous system and. Do these things to improve your overall health and your reflective functioning. Jess, how can this impact and affect our parenting?

Jess: 13:44

Strong RF helps parents understand their child's emotions and respond with empathy, which is so hard right there. Yeah. It's

Randi: 13:52

a hard time.'cause we always are like, why don't you just do what I do or do what I say? And it's and sometimes the world is very different than when we grew up with it too, so it's hard to have. Always like that empathy or understanding of what they're walking through because it is so different than when we were younger.

Jess: 14:08

I saw a thing the other day that said, you are not failing at life. Now in your thirties, what you are doing is you're navigating a life that is different than previous generations did in their thirties. Mm-hmm. Because we no longer have the same college experiences. We no longer have the same housing market. We no longer have, everything's

Randi: 14:28

different, finance. Tech,

Jess: 14:30

Yes, I'm not trying to have relationships with everything is, oh my God, thank everything is God. We didn't have social media growing up. They're trying to do all that. So it's just different. But when we have poor rf, it leads to being frustrated with our children, not understanding what their needs are and being emotionally disconnected, which is so hard, like right now. And that causes other issues.

Randi: 14:52

Yeah.

Jess: 14:52

I feel old as it is.'cause I'm like, I don't know what pop off means. What does pop off means? I don't play video games. Yeah. It just

Randi: 14:59

means I don't know. Like go,

Jess: 15:00

go

Randi: 15:00

off, go do your thing. Yeah. Do your thing. Woo woo. Yeah. I, I dunno, I can't, I'm constantly. Asking like even people like in their thirties that I game with or what are you saying? What is that word? We're not even that far apart in age and I don't understand anything you're saying. I know

Jess: 15:19

because I thought puff off was like F off and I was like, and they're like, no, no, it's actually a good thing.

Randi: 15:23

My friends said the other day, I'm so py and I said, Py, what? What's py you? You creepy. Creepy. What? Sleepy. It's sleepy. I said I constantly feel like I need to be up in Urban Dictionary trying to understand other generations. But yeah, but so imagine

Jess: 15:39

if we can't even understand some of their lingo. Imagine not being able, if we have poor rf, that we're not gonna be connected to them emotionally. So Randy, how can I practice reflective functioning

Randi: 15:49

in my daily life? Really, the main thing that's important is to start by pausing. Before reacting, ask yourself about possible perspectives in that situation. Flip the script, try to see it from all sides. Write down your thoughts and engage in mindful self-reflection. Think about how could I have handled this differently or how, not negative self-talk, but in a positive way, and not toxic. No, nothing toxic. So Jess, what's the difference between reflective functioning and emotional intelligence?

Jess: 16:21

I. Emotional intelligence involves recognizing and managing emotions? Well, the difference is that RF specifically focuses on understanding the underlying thoughts and mental states behind behaviors, which is huge. It's like, okay, if we understand why we did it, let's, work on that. Randy. Where can I find professional help to improve rf?

Randi: 16:42

Find therapists that are trained in MBT MENTALIZATION based therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, and psychodynamic therapy. Those, therapists usually specialize in those aspects, and that can help improve RF skills. There's also online resources, mental health podcasts like ours. Yes. And we I usually write accompanying articles with all of our podcasts too, so you can go on our website and search for them. Looking up self-help books on mindfulness and emotional regulation and emotional intelligence too can also help pair with this.

Jess: 17:16

Oh, and boundaries. Don't forget your boundaries. Mm-hmm. So whether you're just learning about RF or you've been working on it for a while, remember that your self-awareness is a journey. We're never gonna get to the end.

Randi: 17:28

It's always evolving a hundred percent. You need to be patient with yourself and others and know that every little step you take towards strengthening yourself and your mental health is a step towards a better you. If you found

Jess: 17:42

this episode helpful, please share it with a friend and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode. And little bell at the top. Ding ding. And don't forget to leave us a review, please. We love to hear from you guys. Yes, we

Randi: 17:55

love your feedback. Thank you for spending time with us today. We appreciate you all so much.

Jess: 18:00

Until next time, take care of yourself.