Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
Assessment
Overview
This is the interview only. It does not include scoring, which is a separate service that can be scheduled after the interview.
This is the “gold standard of attachment assessments” (Brown & Elliott, 2016). For those committed to healing their attachment conditioning, this is a helpful starting benchmark to establish.
The interview triggers your ‘attachment mechanism’ by asking you questions about childhood attachment situations. The responses are then coded for patterns that place you into one or a combination of attachment styles (secure, dismissing, preoccupied, disorganized (cannot classify), unresolved).
The interview itself takes between 60 and 90 minutes. The scoring is done by a third party trained as a ‘reliable AAI coder’.
The interview takes a comprehensive look at childhood experiences in terms of the caregiver’s level of:
- rejection
- role-reversal
- pressure to achieve
- neglect
- overall “loving-ness”
Trauma and loss are also assessed. Moreover, your current state of mind relative to attachment is assessed. This is accomplished largely by gauging:
- degree of idealization of attachment figures (positive claims about caregivers that aren’t backed up by memories later on in the interview)
- degree helpless anger
- derogation of caregivers
- derogation of attachment
The following are determined as well:
- Passivity of thought process
- Coherence of transcript and mind
- Meta-cognitive/reflective functioning (when scored for reflective function)
Final scoring produces a detailed assessment of your attachment style based on these factors. The AAI score is valuable as it gives us a pre-treatment determination of attachment conditioning. Then at the end of treatment, it is re-administered and scored. This produces pre/post scores that validate your journey from insecure attachment (dismissing, preoccupied, and disorganized) to secure attachment. This helps with motivation and faith in the practice.
The transformation of the internal working model of attachment and therefore core mental health is quantified and tracked.
To that point, when your primary attachment style is known then we modify the attachment repair meditation to correct that type of insecure attachment (dismissing, preoccupied, or disorganized).
So, taking the AAI within the first month of one-on-one treatment is very helpful as it optimizes the course of treatment. However, it is not obligatory. For many, it makes sense to put off the AAI until full faith in the therapeutic/corrective process of attachment repair is developed.
Moreover, after the second phase of treatment (working through ‘early maladaptive schemas’) secure attachment conditioning is assumed to be in place. At that point, we re-administer the AAI to verify the attainment of secure attachment. This is very satisfying as it assures all parties of the success of the treatment.
This is the interview only ($250 which includes Cedric’s unofficial ‘best guess’ as to your attachment style plus his best guess as to what what the path to secure attachment would be for you (how long, how much work, the types of work to do etc) and if it would be worth getting it officially scored. The interview does not include scoring, which is a separate service that can be scheduled after the recorded interview. Official transcription and scoring can be arranged with third parties (a certified reliable coder of the AAI) The additional cost of these services is $800.
$250
Where did you hear about this Program?
Description
This is the interview only. It does not include scoring, which is a separate service that can be scheduled after the interview.
This is the “gold standard of attachment assessments” (Brown & Elliott, 2016). For those committed to healing their attachment conditioning, this is a helpful starting benchmark to establish.
The interview triggers your ‘attachment mechanism’ by asking you questions about childhood attachment situations. The responses are then coded for patterns that place you into one or a combination of attachment styles (secure, dismissing, preoccupied, disorganized (cannot classify), unresolved).
The interview itself takes between 60 and 90 minutes. The scoring is done by a third party trained as a ‘reliable AAI coder’.
The interview takes a comprehensive look at childhood experiences in terms of the caregiver’s level of:
- rejection
- role-reversal
- pressure to achieve
- neglect
- overall “loving-ness”
Trauma and loss are also assessed. Moreover, your current state of mind relative to attachment is assessed. This is accomplished largely by gauging:
- degree of idealization of attachment figures (positive claims about caregivers that aren’t backed up by memories later on in the interview)
- degree helpless anger
- derogation of caregivers
- derogation of attachment
The following are determined as well:
- Passivity of thought process
- Coherence of transcript and mind
- Meta-cognitive/reflective functioning (when scored for reflective function)
Final scoring produces a detailed assessment of your attachment style based on these factors. The AAI score is valuable as it gives us a pre-treatment determination of attachment conditioning. Then at the end of treatment, it is re-administered and scored. This produces pre/post scores that validate your journey from insecure attachment (dismissing, preoccupied, and disorganized) to secure attachment. This helps with motivation and faith in the practice.
The transformation of the internal working model of attachment and therefore core mental health is quantified and tracked.
To that point, when your primary attachment style is known then we modify the attachment repair meditation to correct that type of insecure attachment (dismissing, preoccupied, or disorganized).
So, taking the AAI within the first month of one-on-one treatment is very helpful as it optimizes the course of treatment. However, it is not obligatory. For many, it makes sense to put off the AAI until full faith in the therapeutic/corrective process of attachment repair is developed.
Moreover, after the second phase of treatment (working through ‘early maladaptive schemas’) secure attachment conditioning is assumed to be in place. At that point, we re-administer the AAI to verify the attainment of secure attachment. This is very satisfying as it assures all parties of the success of the treatment.
This is the interview only ($250 which includes Cedric’s unofficial ‘best guess’ as to your attachment style plus his best guess as to what what the path to secure attachment would be for you (how long, how much work, the types of work to do etc) and if it would be worth getting it officially scored. The interview does not include scoring, which is a separate service that can be scheduled after the recorded interview. Official transcription and scoring can be arranged with third parties (a certified reliable coder of the AAI) The additional cost of these services is $800.
Additional information
| Options | Interview Only, Interview & Official Scoring |
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