Training Opportunities

In person or via Zoom,
with CE credits available for Social Workers and Counselors




Adult Attachment Interview Institute

to be taught over Zoom, 24 July - 4 August, 2023

To be taught by members of the Consortium of AAI Trainers: Professors Howard Steele and Miriam Steele.

For full information about this special learning opportunity, email

Howard Steele




SEAS Sponsored SRCD Attachment Preconference
2023, Salt Lake City, Utah

The morning will focus on attachment and culture.
The afternoon will focus on how attachment theory is understood by child welfare workers.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023
10:00am - 4:30pm MDT
Location to be announced.

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This is an in-person event. The morning session (10:00 am -12:30pm) will begin with a talk on cultural critiques of Attachment Theory to be delivered by Everett Waters and Morris Eagle, with Marian Bakersman-Kranenburg serving as discussant. To be followed by an open discussion. There will be a 90 minute lunch break 12:30-2:00pm for participants to find food and refreshments locally. The afternoon session (2:00pm - 4:30pm) will start with the 3 circa 18-minute prerecorded presentations from colleagues in UK, Sweden and Germany who are actively involved in research on understanding how well, or poorly, child welfare practitioners understand attachment theory and research. To be followed by an open discussion. People will be seated at round tables enabling discussion with others at one's table in 'break-out' periods.




Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Institute


Professors Howard Steele and Miriam Steele, members of the Consortium of AAI Trainers.
We typically offer an AAI Institute over a two week period once every 12-18 months.
For more information, email Howard




Friends & Family Interview Training

Over Zoom: December 14 - 16, 2022
1pm-3pm EST

This seminar will provide detailed advice on how to administer the FFI, and how to code FFI transcriptions with the FFI Coding Manual, a multi-dimensional scoring system that provides interval scores for a wide range of attachment-relevant concepts and an overall classification of each interview as secure or insecure. The Seminar concludes with distribution of a set of 18-20 interview transcriptions to score in your own time if you want to become a reliable FFI coder.

Training to be provided by:

Howard Steele, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology, The New School for Social Research
Co-Director, Center for Attachment Research – www.center-for-attachment.com
Email: SteeleH@newschool.edu

For information on the cost of training and to secure a place, send an email to Howard Steele.




Reflective Functioning (RF) Training

Over Zoom: June 23 - 25, 2022

Reflective functioning (RF), also known as ‘mentalization’, has been shown to overlap with mental health in adults, and has been the focus of a number of recent books and articles detailing its vital place in developmental and clinical research. The RF concept was first developed by Peter Fonagy, Mary Target, Miriam Steele and Howard Steele. The validity base for this construct comes from its reliable application to Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs). RF scores derived from parents’ AAIs are powerfully predictive of child outcomes in terms of mental health, self and social development. RF scores derived from AAIs obtained from patients (before and after psychotherapeutic treatment) reveal positive and significant changes.

This training over Zoom is aimed at advanced graduate students and professionals aiming to score RF in Adult Attachment Interviews, or other narrative material. The training will provide a detailed inside look at the evolution of the RF coding manual, and how to apply the RF coding manual to AAIs with discussion of other narrative material.

Training to be provided by:

Howard Steele, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology, The New School for Social Research
Co-Director, Center for Attachment Research – www.center-for-attachment.com
Email: SteeleH@newschool.edu

For information on the cost of training and to secure a place, send an email to Howard Steele.