Strange Situation

In the 1960s, Ainsworth devised a procedure to observe attachment relationships between a caregiver and child. In this procedure of the Strange Situation, the child is observed playing while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives. The situation varies in stressfulness and the child's behavioral responses are observed.

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985), a semistructured interview of 18 questions, concentrates on eliciting a sense of what probably happened to individuals in childhood and a picture of the degree to which they have evaluated those experiences. As a clinical intake tool, the AAI yields a relatively deep social history at the level of experience and symbolic representation, with a particular focus on attachment-related experiences. "Deep" in this context refers to material that reflects both early memories and modes of responding to (or coping with) experience stored at diverse levels of awareness. In this gathering of information, the AAI allows for the assessment of the following three features of the respondent’s inner world: (a) the nature of the speaker’s probable childhood experiences with his or her parents; (b) the nature of the speaker’s mental representations of each parent, including their emotional stance toward them; and (c) the extent to which loss or other traumatic events or life circumstances have influenced their development and current personality organization (Steele & Baradon, 2004). Professors Howard Steele and Miriam Steele are members of the Consortium of AAI Trainers.

Mirror Interview

In the Mirror Interview (Kernberg, 2007), subjects are asked to answer a variety of questions about themselves, their body, and the influence of their parents while looking at their reflections in a full-length mirror. The Mirror Interview is based on the assumption that looking at oneself in the mirror while responding to these questions plays a critical role in the task, in terms of assessing both attachment and body image.

Rearing Coding System (RCS)

The Rearing Coding System focuses primarily on clinician competence and therapeutic action within the Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI). The coding group watches 10-minute clips of clinicians and trainees delivering GABI with parent-child dyads and codes them using a 5 point Likert scale (where 1 indicates less "competence" or skillfulness in the intervention and 5 a skillful, meaningful intervention) across 7 modes of therapeutic action, termed REARING. REARING is the theoretical basis for GABI and exemplifies the things the clinician does or does not do, to create therapeutic change in parent-child dyads. REARING stands for: Reflective functioning, Emotional attunement, Affect regulation, Reticence, Intergenerational patterns of attachment, Nurturance, and Group context. More recently, a set of "body codes" have been added to assess the therapeutic action in the clinician's non-verbal communication. This coding group is perhaps most relevant for people who are interested in the dissemination of evidence-based treatments in psychology, psychotherapy process research, and understanding therapeutic action.

Applications of Clinical Training Assessment (ACTA)

Applications of Clinical Training Assessment is an assessment and training measure used to assess a GABI clinician's competence across 7 modes of therapeutic action, termed REARING. REARING is the theoretical basis for GABI and exemplifies the things the clinician does or does not do, to create therapeutic change in parent-child dyads. REARING stands for: Reflective functioning, Emotional attunement, Affect regulation, Reticence, Intergenerational patterns of attachment, Nurturance, and Group context. Each clinician is asked to complete ACTA at three different time-points: pre-training, post-training, three months post-training. At each time point, the clinician watches a novel GABI video, and is asked a series of questions such as " What do you see happening in this video? What struck you about this situation?" and "Do you see any therapeutic interventions being used? Please describe." The answers are coded and reviewed by the clinician and supervisors.

Friends & Family Interview (FFI)

The Friends and Family Interview was first developed and tested by Miriam and Howard Steele in the context of the 11-year follow-up of the London Parent-Child Project. The interview seeks to bridge the gap in attachment classification measures that begins with the Strange Situation (SS) in infancy before skipping to the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) in adulthood. It is intended to be administered during middle childhood and adolescence.

Story Stems

Story Stems is a projective assessment for children ages 5-10 years of age. In this task, the interviewer reads and enacts (using playmobile figures and/or animal dolls) a story which stresses the attachment system, for example, a child is shown to burn their finger while the mother is cooking dinner. After the introduction of a dilemma, the interviewer asks the child to, “show me and tell me what happens next” and the child is free to complete the story.