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Clinical Applications of the Adult Attachment Interview

• Edited by Howard Steele, Miriam Steele

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• Binding: Hardback
• Pages: 501
• Published by: Guilford Press
• Publication Date: 30th April 2008
• ISBN: 978-1-59385-696-0

About the Book

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) is both a mainstay of attachment research and a powerful clinical tool. This unique book provides a thorough introduction to the AAI and its use as an adjunct to a range of therapeutic approaches, including cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, parent-infant psychotherapy, home visiting programs, and supportive work in the context of foster care and adoption. Leading authorities provide detailed descriptions of clinical procedures and techniques, illustrated with vivid case material. Grounded in research, the volume highlights how using the AAI can enhance assessment and diagnosis, strengthen the therapeutic alliance, and facilitate goal setting, treatment planning, and progress monitoring.

Reviews

"Exceptionally coherent and immensely helpful, this book comprehensively reviews how the Adult Attachment Interview can be used to guide clinical work in a range of high-priority contexts. This remarkable instrument, which has more than proved itself in the developmental laboratory, also turns out to be a marvelous and versatile tool in the hands of the creative clinician. An essential book for all those who work with children." - Peter Fonagy, Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, UK

'Steele and Steele have brought together a really valuable set of data and ideas concerning the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), one of the more intriguing and powerful clinical and research tools available in psychology. The book stands out as a serious and ambitious attempt to translate the AAI - and attachment theory more broadly - to multiple clinical contexts. Chapters are written by leading clinicians and scientists, and each is focused and thoughtful, showing, for example, how the AAI informs case conceptualization in individual treatment. This volume deserves to be widely read. It is highly accessible for those just beginning to apply attachment theory to research and practice, but there is also enough that is new to please experienced fans of the AAI.' - Thomas G. O'Connor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, USA

Table of Contents

Part I: The AAI in Clinical Context. H. Steele, M. Steele, The Clinical Relevance of the AAI. Hesse, Main, Goldwyn, Reflecting on the Move to the Level of Representation. van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, The Distribution of Adult Attachment Representations in Clinical Groups: A Meta-analytic Search for Patterns of Attachment. Part II: Intervention Research with Mothers, Infants, and Toddlers. Heinicke, Levine, The AAI Anticipates the Outcome of a Relation-based Early Intervention. Teti, Killeen, Candelaria, Miller, Reiner Hess, O’Connell, Adult Attachment, Parental Commitment to Early Intervention, and Developmental Outcomes in an African American Sample. Toth, Rogosch, Cicchetti, Attachment-theory-informed Intervention and Reflective Functioning in Depressed Mothers. Part III: Parent-infant Relationships, Adolescents, and Adults in Psychotherapy. Jones, The AAI as a Clinical Tool. Baradon, M. Steele, Integrating the AAI in the Clinical Process of Psychoanalytic Parent-infant Psychotherapy in a Case of Relational Trauma. Ivarsson, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Adolescence: An AAI Perspective. Ammaniti, Dazzi, Muscetta, The AAI in a Clinical Context: Some Experiences and Illustrations. Diamond, Yeomans, Clarkin, Levy, Kernberg, The Reciprocal Impact of Attachment and Transference-focused Psychotherapy with Borderline Patients. Part IV: The AAI and Trauma. S. G. de Millán, S. Millán, The AAI and its Contribution to a Therapeutic Intervention Project for Violent, Traumatized and Suicidal Cases. Stovall-McClough, Cloitre, McClough, Adult Attachment and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Women with Histories of Childhood Abuse. Crowell, Hauser, AAIs in a High-risk Sample: Stability and Relation to Functioning from Adolescence to 39 Years. Moran, Bailey, Gleason, DeOliveira, Pederson, Exploring the Mind Behind Unresolved Attachment: Lessons From and For Attachment-based Interventions with Infants and Their Traumatized Mothers. Melnick, Finger, Hans, Patrick, Lyons-Ruth, Hostile-helpless States of Mind in the AAI: A Proposed Additional AAI Category with Implications for Identifying Disorganized Infant Attachment in High-risk Samples. Part V: The AAI, Foster Care, and Adoptive Placements. M. Steele, Hodges, Kanuik, H. Steele, Hillman, Asquith, Forecasting Outcomes in Previously Maltreated Children: The Use of the AAI in a Longitudinal Adoption Study. Bick, Dozier, Helping Foster Parents Change: The Role of Parental State of Mind. Jacobvitz, Afterword.

About the Author(s)

Howard Steele, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Psychology at the New School for Social Research, NY, USA, where he is Codirector (with Miriam Steele) of the Center for Attachment Research. He is senior and founding editor of the journal Attachment and Human Development and is the author of more than 60 journal articles and book chapters on the impact of attachment, loss, trauma, and emotion understanding across the lifespan and across generations.

Miriam Steele, PhD, is Associate Professor and Assistant Director of the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research, NY, USA and Codirector (with Howard Steele) of the Center for Attachment Research. Dr. Steele trained as a psychoanalyst at the Anna Freud Centre. She initiated the London Parent-Child Project, a major longitudinal study of intergenerational patterns of attachment, and has also carried out longitudinal attachment research in the context of child maltreatment and adoption, which she publishes and lectures on widely.

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