We all need to be held in mind by others, especially by our caregivers early in life, at a time before we have words- or the capacity to think about ourselves on our own. Being held in someone else’s mind makes us feel seen and understood, thought about, relevant, and represented. Being held in someone else’s body is essential for the infant on the most basic level, yet being held in mind is also what helps us feel that we’re real—as a person who can be thought about. 

Sometimes caregivers are too preoccupied to hold a child in mind. Sometimes a parent understands only the language of physicality and tends to the infant on a practical, concrete level, without a mindful awareness of who the infant is, how he or she must feel, what the infant needs. This form of neglect is not obvious at first glance, because the child’s physical needs are being met, but its effects often emerge later, when the child does not feel real, important, or represented in the imagination of the other—at times when the other is not physically present. A difficulty with object constancy may arise, and separations may feel annihilating rather than bearable.

As therapists, we often attend to the physical aspects of the space we provide—the office, the ambience, the setting, the position of the couch or chair. But we don’t always think about how our clients need us to hold them in mind from session to session. Remembering who they are and what they’ve said after a separation, letting them know they’ve been thought about even when they were not present—these are not small things. Hearing the therapist’s voice, seeing that look of recognition, being reminded of something meaningful from the previous session—these are ways of holding continuity. We show the client that we have not forgotten them, that we are paying attention, that they exist for us outside the frame of the hour as much as within it. In a quiet way, this builds a sense of psychic permanence: You are still here in my mind, even when you’re  not in the room.

But in order to hold another in mind, the other must be separate from us. There has to be a distinct person to think about; otherwise, it becomes enmeshment rather than holding. Being merged with someone is different from allowing them to exist as a separate presence and letting our own mind reflect on who they are, what they’ve shared, what they might need. We recognize the other because they are an other. That small but essential distance preserves our capacity to think, to see, and to hold without suffocating—without collapsing into them or pulling them into us.

We all know how good it feels to be thought of—unless, in our primary relationships, we have been held in mind in ways that felt unsafe or misattuned. In those cases, the experience of being represented in another’s mind as something steady and benevolent may need to develop slowly, as a kind of emotional achievement. Most of all, when we remember what others have told us, think about them when we’re apart, imagine what they might be feeling or needing—these are quiet but profound gifts. To hold someone in mind is, in a very real sense, to help them feel that they exist.