This blog is a summary of my doctoral dissertation, so it is quite extensive. Here, I will discuss how a concept from evolutionary psychology, namely, Life History Theory (LHT), can complement and improve our understanding of various cognitive mechanisms, as well as meta-perspectives (levels of intentionality and mentalisation) that occur when we regulate our emotions and how this relates to our attachment states.
Key Concepts
Life History Theory (LHT)
Life History Theory provides a framework for understanding how individuals allocate their resources, such as time, energy, and effort, towards growth, reproduction, and survival. This theory posits that individuals develop life strategies based on their environmental conditions. For example, in stable environments, individuals might adopt a future-oriented strategy, investing in long-term goals and relationships. Conversely, in unpredictable environments, a present-focused strategy might be more adaptive, prioritising immediate survival and reproduction.
Levels of Intentionality
Levels of intentionality refer to the ability to take and understand different perspectives. According to Dunbar (1998), intentionality involves the capacity to understand an individual's intentions and impact the mental states of others. Humans can manage multiple levels of intentionality, reflecting our ability to understand not just our own thoughts and intentions but also to attribute thoughts, beliefs, and intentions to others, and even to comprehend what others think about the thoughts and intentions of yet other people.
For instance, first-level intentionality is simply having a belief or desire, while second-level intentionality involves understanding that someone else has beliefs or desires. This ability increases in complexity, potentially reaching up to fifth-level intentionality in humans, where one might think about what another person believes about someone else's thoughts or intentions. Dunbar (1998) suggests that the number of these levels that humans can manage is related to the size of our social groups and the cognitive demands of maintaining complex social relationships.
Mentalisation
Mentaliation is closely related to the idea of levels of intentionality. It refers to the ability to understand and interpret one’s own and others’ mental states, thoughts, feelings, desires, and intentions (Fonagy et al., 2002). Mentalisation involves seeing others as separate from oneself, with their own distinct mental worlds. It develops through early attachment relationships, where caregivers help children understand their emotions and thoughts, which leads to more effective regulation of these emotions in a way that is more beneficial to their general well-being.
Key Differences Between Mentalisation and Levels of Intentionality:
Mentalisation (Fonagy's Concept):
Rooted in attachment theory and the development of affect regulation within interpersonal contexts.
Focuses on development, particularly how early childhood attachment experiences influence one's ability to understand mental states.
Levels of Intentionality (Dunbar's Framework):
Stems from evolutionary psychology, focusing on the cognitive demands of managing complex social interactions across species.
Concerns cognitive evolution and the number of intentionality layers humans can handle due to increasing social complexity.
Applying These Concepts
When we are conflicted about two viewpoints or courses of action, we can identify with the differing intentions of the “parts” (or narratives) in conflict. We can mentalise our own intentions.
For example:
First-Level Intentionality: The individual experiences a thought, desire, or intention.
Example: "I want to eat this chocolate." (Present-focused).
Second-Level Intentionality: The individual becomes aware of this experience and creates a judgement, narrative, or understanding about it.
Example: "I am aware of my desire to eat this chocolate. I am so hungry, and eating this chocolate will feel so nice; what's life for if not for these moments?" (Present-focused and aware)
Third-Level Intentionality: The individual recognises that the situation could be seen from a different perspective. They are aware of the thought or desire and are able to reflect on their own thoughts, challenge them, and possibly inhibit an undesired behaviour.
Example: "Even though you feel like you need some comfort food, if you eat that chocolate, your belly will not be getting any smaller, and you won't be doing your health any favours. You won't feel so great afterward either. If you want to live a long, healthy life, it would be better if you eat a healthy snack instead." (Future-focused, aware, and reflective).
Insights from My Research
I explored these concepts in my doctoral thesis by investigating the narratives of participants who were experiencing distress due to behaviours they saw as problematic. I sought to understand the functions such behaviours may serve, their development, and how participants saw themselves in relation to their behaviour, that is, how these behaviours influenced their identity and self-perception.
To capture both a phenomenological perspective and a biological/evolutionarily informed perspective, I used template analysis. This method involves taking a third-person position when attempting to make sense of participants’ experiences and developing a coding "template" that identifies themes and sub-themes from the data, refined throughout the research process. I embraced a hybrid epistemological position, combining both deductive and inductive approaches known as heterophenomenology (Dennett, 1993), which allowed me to ground my analysis in evolutionary theory while remaining open to the lived experiences and narratives of my participants.
I interviewed a total of 13 participants with a variety of behaviours that they felt caused them distress or unwanted consequences. These participants were recruited from different sources. Participants varied in ethnicity, occupation, and age, with many having backgrounds in mental health professions. This allowed for richer insights into their behaviours due to their ability to articulate their experiences. For example, the participants’ occupations ranged from graduate students to manual workers and mental health professionals, and ages ranged from early 20s to over 60.
Findings:
The behaviours participants engage in can be understood as adaptive responses to their life experiences as they have served to regulate emotions in a way that maintains their identity, social connections and/or self-esteem.
Significant early experiences of deprivation, trauma, and social conformity play a crucial role in shaping individuals' behaviours and their self-regulation strategies.
Participants’ “problematic” behaviours reflect life-history strategies, where they balance between present-focused (seeking immediate gratification) and future-oriented (investing in long-term goals) strategies.
The ability to mentalise—to reflect on oneself and others—facilitates future-oriented strategies, enabling participants to plan, regulate emotions, and focus on long-term goals. In contrast, present-focused strategies are often characterised by limited mentalisation, where individuals seek immediate relief from emotional distress, focusing on short-term solutions without considering long-term consequences.
These strategies often involve trade-offs that, while appearing problematic on the surface, serve important adaptive functions by helping participants manage emotional and social challenges.
Illustrative examples:
Henry (Behaviour: substance use and crime)
Growing up, Henry’s childhood was marked by instability and emotional rejection. His family environment was dysfunctional, with frequent conflict and disciplinary actions, leaving Henry without a sense of security or attachment. At a young age, Henry experienced emotional neglect and was eventually locked out of his home and forced to find work, which only reinforced his feelings of abandonment and isolation.
In response to these early experiences, Henry developed a behaviour pattern that allowed him to regulate his emotions and maintain a sense of identity and social connection. At age 15, he turned to substance use, which initially seemed like a temporary escape but quickly became an ingrained coping mechanism. His drug use helped him manage the emotional pain tied to rejection and provided instant relief from distress. It also allowed him to connect with others who shared similar experiences, particularly within a community of petty criminals and drug users. For Henry, this behaviour served not only to soothe his emotional wounds but also to create a sense of belonging in an environment that accepted him. In this way, Henry's behaviour functioned as an adaptive response to both his emotional deprivation and the social norms of the group he became a part of.
Henry’s reliance on immediate gratification aligns with a present-focused life-history strategy, shaped by his early deprivation. Rather than planning for long-term goals, Henry prioritised behaviours that provided quick emotional relief. His limited ability to regulate his emotions through mentalising, to understand the long-term consequences of his actions and reflect on his emotional needs, kept him trapped in this short-term coping cycle. Drug use, and crime, while harmful in the long run, gave Henry a way to survive emotionally in the moment, reinforcing his identity that involves a pattern of short-term survival over future well-being.
Teresa (Behaviour: Benzodiazepine use and self-harm)
Teresa’s behaviours were shaped by significant early experiences of emotional deprivation and trauma, particularly through her relationship with her mother. Growing up, Teresa's mother offered her benzodiazepines whenever she was distressed, teaching Teresa to rely on substances as a means of managing her emotions, rather than providing emotional support or fostering self-soothing. This early exposure to substance use became Teresa's primary emotion-regulation strategy. Numbing herself with benzodiazepines allowed her to cope with overwhelming emotions, maintaining emotional control and protecting her sense of identity, self-esteem, and social belonging.
This behaviour, along with self-harm later in life, served as an adaptive response to her early emotional deprivation. Teresa used these behaviours to manage intense emotional pain by dissociating or "disappearing" into a numb state. In doing so, she avoided confronting the deep feelings of rejection that stemmed from her emotional neglect. Since these behaviours allowed her to protect her social connections by keeping her struggles hidden from friends (including her therapist), Teresa avoided the threat of social exclusion or judgement, which would have further damaged her already fragile sense of self-worth. Thus, her substance use and self-harm, though seen as maladaptive in the long term, were adaptive responses to maintain control over her emotions and prevent rejection.
As Teresa matured, she began to recognise how she was not looking after herself by engaging in those behaviours and made a conscious decision to shift toward a “better version of herself” that did not include those behaviours. Drawing on her ability to mentalise, she began to reflect on her early trauma and its impact on her life, which allowed her to develop a more constructive narrative. Rather than continuing to rely on benzodiazepines and self-harm, she gradually transitioned to behaviours that supported emotional growth and long-term stability. Teresa invested in meaningful relationships with supportive individuals and took up activities such as learning languages and sewing, which symbolised her commitment to personal development. These actions reflect a future-oriented strategy, aimed at fostering emotional resilience and a sense of purpose in her life.
Enrique - Procrastination
Enrique’s behaviours are deeply shaped by the early pressure to succeed placed on him by his family. Growing up, his parents were often absent due to work, and he felt a strong need to seek validation through academic success. From a young age, Enrique learned that excelling academically was the primary way to gain his parents' attention and approval, which contributed to his sense of self-worth. He was highly driven by the expectation of being on the “table of excellence” at school, and any failure to meet these standards severely impacted his self-esteem. His early life experiences of emotional deprivation, due to the absence of parental attention, combined with social conformity pressures, resulted in Enrique internalising the belief that academic success was crucial for maintaining his identity and social status.
As an adaptive response to this pressure, Enrique developed procrastination as a coping mechanism. This behaviour allowed him to avoid the emotional discomfort and anxiety tied to his perfectionist tendencies. Procrastination served to protect his self-esteem by helping him delay facing tasks that could potentially challenge his academic identity. In this sense, procrastination acted as a short-term emotional regulation tool, allowing him to manage the stress of academic performance while temporarily avoiding threats to his sense of self-worth. Although procrastination appeared maladaptive on the surface, it functioned as an adaptive response that helped him survive the emotional toll of high expectations.
Enrique’s behaviour also illustrates a dual life-history strategy, where he balances present-focused and future-oriented approaches. His procrastination reflects a present-focused strategy, as it provides immediate relief from stress by allowing him to avoid academic tasks. However, this avoidance ultimately creates intense pressure as deadlines approach, which pushes him to meet his long-term performance goals. The rush of working under pressure paradoxically reinforces his sense of accomplishment and helps preserve his identity as an achiever. This is a non-mentalising trade-off: while he does not fully reflect on the emotional dynamics at play, his procrastination allows him to navigate the conflicting needs of protecting his emotional state in the short term while achieving academic success in the long term.
Integrating Life History Theory, Mentalisation, and Emotion Regulation:
Understanding human behaviour and psychological processes requires an interdisciplinary approach that draws from evolutionary theory, human development, and cognitive psychology. By integrating Life History Theory (LHT), mentalisation, and emotion regulation, we can gain deeper insights into the mental mechanisms that shape individuals' phenomenological experiences and their consequences. This theoretical synthesis highlights how biological mechanisms are qualitatively represented in human behaviour and cognition.
My research illustrated how Fonagy’s theory of mentalisation, levels of intentionality and how it relates to attachment theory. Fonagy et al. (2002) proposed that the fulfilment of attachment needs gives rise to the ability to mentalise, the capacity to attribute mental states to oneself and others. In this way, attachment serves to produce a representational system for self-states through mentalisation, which is essential for developing a psychological sense of self. An absence of mentalising capacity under stress is signalled by the disorganisation of the attachment system and the activation of defensive regulatory strategies.
Various psychological theories and therapeutic approaches, including psychodynamic theories, CBT, and EMDR, converge on the idea that human cognitive development involves first-person, second-person, and third-person perspective-taking. The first-person perspective refers to the immediate, subjective experience of the individual, their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The second-person perspective involves direct interactions with others, where individuals perceive others as either entirely 'good' or 'bad,' as described in Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position. The third-person perspective represents a more advanced level of understanding, where individuals recognise others as independent subjects with their own thoughts and feelings, as seen in Freud's Oedipal situation, where a child becomes aware of complex social relationships, and Klein's depressive position, where the child integrates both positive and negative perceptions of others into a cohesive whole. These increasingly complex levels of thinking reflect the evolutionary development of a theory of mind in humans, moving from egocentric viewpoints to nuanced understandings of others' perspectives, which is crucial for advanced social interactions (Baron-Cohen, 1997; Gilbert, 2003; Tomasello & Call, 1997; Dunbar, 1998).
It can therefore be argued that insecure attachment strategies are shaped by natural selection (Chisholm, 1996). When developing infants receive irregular care, they focus on short-term growth and survival rather than soliciting care from non-responsive and potentially dangerous parents. Therefore, individuals adjust their risk-taking behaviour based on their expected future fitness. Those with higher expectations tend to be more risk-averse to ensure survival and realisation of those expectations, whereas those with lower expectations may be more prone to risk-taking due to having less to lose (Kruger et al., 2015).
In this context, emotions serve as both primary means of meaning construction and primary signalling systems foundational to attachment (Greenberg, 2004). LHT suggests that early stress indexes environmental risk and uncertainty, influencing life-history strategies (Chisholm et al., 1993). However, it is important to note that it is not the stress itself which signals uncertainty but the experience of stress and according to Fonagy et al. (2002) these experiences are what mediates the expression of genotype into phenotype. It follows that in order to adopt a future-oriented strategy/outlook the capacity to mentalise is required, enabling conscious consideration of trade-offs (i.e.: decision to forgo immediate gratification for future reward). From this perspective, both attachment theory and LHT support the notion that different strategies—whether present-focused or future-focused—are adaptive in their own ways, depending on environmental conditions.
LHT can thus be seen as an extension of attachment theory, further informed by evolutionary principles. Nevertheless, just as attachment styles are now best described as states of mind (Main et al., 1985), LHT strategies may not be mutually exclusive but exist along independent continuums (Holtzman & Senne, 2014). Individuals may exhibit conflicting goals from both strategies, with varying degrees of integration. For instance, many participants in my study expressed awareness of the conflict between their present and future or ideal selves. However, they consciously chose to avoid thinking about it, relegating it to a 'future self' to address later, or temporarily pretending that no conflict existed. Psychodynamic approaches often refer to this as rationalising or intellectualising (Leiper & Maltby, 2004), while mentalisation-based approaches describe it as pseudomentalising (Fonagy et al., 2002). This allows individuals to self-regulate in a way that gives coherence to both their present-experiencing self and their future or valued self without necessarily integrating both narratives.
Conclusions
My research highlights a view of consciousness that is dialogical and narrative in nature. Our perceptions of ourselves and the world are dynamic, characterised by the levels of intentionality or the 'number of person' perspectives we adopt when reflecting consciously or internalising unconsciously. The concept of integration is crucial because it is what psychodynamic and cognitive approaches aim for clients to achieve through third-person perspective-taking. This integration involves a dialectical process of synthesis, combining thesis and antithesis to make sense of new information.
In narrative therapies, whether cognitive or systemic, clients transform themselves by changing the stories they tell about their lives (e.g., Neimeyer & Raskin, 2000). These therapies view the contextualisation of events in interactive terms involving at least three actors, which changes narratives. The actors refer to the different perspectives being integrated through third-person thinking and mentalising.
It is equally important to recognise that inner conflict may never be entirely resolved, and it may even be adaptive. Fragmentation contains narratives where there may be adaptive benefits gained through engaging in certain behaviours, even if individuals perceive these behaviours as problematic. For example, a behaviour may be part of a future-focused strategy while also serving as a threat-focused response; in other words, a defence mechanism is employed to achieve a future goal. Therefore, even if there is no resolution of the conflict, acting out the behaviour without mentalising or adopting third-person thinking, the strategy may still be functioning and stable. This is a humbling reality that honours the client in their efforts to exist in this world like everyone else. From this view naturally emerges feelings of compassion (and self-compassion) and reminds us not to see fragmentation as pathological.
Life History Theory operates on the premise that individuals subconsciously monitor relevant information from their environment and internal states. Often, we have conflicting views and decisions over the course of action we want to take, and this conflict, as described above, is the qualitative representation of LHT strategies.
This ongoing assessment leads to tipping points that can shift an individual from one strategy to another. We might experience this phenomenon ourselves when we let go of a diet or exercise regimen during times of feeling down or anxious, adopting a present-focused strategy to cope with immediate emotional needs. Conversely, when we sacrifice present pleasure or avoid pain in one area, we are likely to do the same in other domains of life (i.e., save or invest, exercise, diet, etc.), such as in New Year's resolutions reflecting a shift to a future-oriented strategy aimed at long-term well-being.
Implications for Therapy
An evolutionary paradigm is depathologizing and changes the narrative away from the medical model, which tends to focus on the treatment of the symptom (the 'pathology') but not the underlying problem. This is often a mistake, as symptoms are likely to be evolutionary adaptations to help the organism deal with a problem. For example, just as cough and pain are defences (adaptations), so anxiety and sadness are adaptations in the form of cues that signal the presence of a threat or loss. This paradigm is validating and compassionate, as it highlights how all beings, in their own diverse and unique ways, are trying to live as best they can.
In terms of therapeutic work, my research supports the view that that regardless of the type of psychotherapy the aim is to create the conditions for integration and mentalisation where a safe and validating space may encourage individuals to reflect upon their behaviour taking into account their early attachment experiences, exposure to adversity, and how this may have shaped their behaviours and attitudes. It may also ultimately help reduce the transgenerational transmission of present focused LH orientations, especially when a future investment orientation may be an overall less painful and more prosocial alternative as the individual is nurtured into developing their full potential.
Lastly, my findings remind us of the importance of paying attention to other areas of the client's life, such as exercise, quitting smoking, eating healthily, sleeping well, getting out of damaging relationships, etc. as changes in one area build momentum towards looking after themselves in general and more fully by also looking after their future self.
As I write this blog, another thought comes to mind, which I didn’t include in my thesis: I believe that mindfulness practice is helpful in promoting mental health, as it prompts us to adopt an internal fourth level of intentionality. At this level, the person adopts a higher perspective where the observer, often referred to in meditation as the "witness," does not identify with the experience (first person), the judgement about the experience (second person), or the revised judgement of the experience (third person). In this position, the "witness" is a separate intentional agent that neutrally watches thoughts and feelings without judgement and accepts them as if the witness were a distinct entity separate from the thoughts and feelings themselves. I believe that this position is inherently compassionate because it acknowledges the suffering of all parts of the self who may need to let go of something (i.e., the idea of an ideal life not lived) and wishes to ease their suffering.
References:
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