Mentalization-Based Therapy Worldwide: A Bibliometric Mapping of Growth, Collaboration and Expansion Across Diagnoses

In just one decade, Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) has progressed from the gold-standard intervention for borderline personality disorder (BPD) to an increasingly consolidated transdiagnostic framework. To chart this trajectory, we analysed 405 publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (2015-2024). Bibliometric processing with Bibliometrix and VOSviewer revealed an uninterrupted growth curve-compound annual growth rate ≈ 8%-driven by a collaborative network dominated by the United Kingdom, the United States and Nordic hubs. Eight core investigators, spearheaded by Fonagy and Bateman, account for 33% of the literature, while openaccess journals publish one-third of the output, accelerating clinical translation. Thematically, MBT research still gravitates around BPD; however, keyword co-occurrence networks signal a decisive migration toward eating disorders, forensic contexts and early psychosis. This bibliometric mapping shows that MBT is expanding in synchrony with health-service demands for scalable, cost-efficient psychological interventions and underscores the need for multicentre trials to validate its effectiveness across diverse cultural and service settings.