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The Adult Attachment Interview - Training on How to Use, Interpret, and Share Clinical Results
Called the “most important assessment of attachment styles in the last 20 years, the AAI has been infamously labeled as the “gold standard” assessment. This brief course will give you a clinical understanding of the AAI and its respective findings and how to properly, collaboratively, and ethically share results with clients and patients. For those of you who don’t have the large amount of time and money to get officially “reliable,” this will be a way for you to use this instrument, knowing that you are not creating any harm or using it when it is contraindicated.
Your instructor, Dr. Zack Bein, is the sole author of a chapter in the upcoming sequel to the above seminal book edited by the Steeles. The chapter goes into some detail about how to conceptualize and understand the use of the AAI in a one-on-one clinical context, such as in Integrative Attachment Therapy. He is also “reliable” to code for AAIs through the AAI Institute.
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).
If the AAI is a tool that you’d like to begin using with your clients/patients, without becoming fully “reliable,” this is a great group for you as you will learn how to use it effectively and ethically to impact your clinical practice. There has been some confusion about how to use it effectively and ethically and this group intends to clear up that confusion and teach the state-of-the-art assessment and the highest standard of care.
The group will be arranged into 3 consecutive days (Fri – Sun) of meeting online for 4 hours each day, 11 AM – 3 PM PST.
We will be concentrating a lot of material into the three days so be ready!
Day 1 – Morning – Administering the AAI/Role Play a “difficult” AAI
Afternoon- Identifying Secure/Autonomous Transcripts (F1 – F5)
Day 2 – Morning – Signs of Preoccupied Transcripts (E1 – E3)
Afternoon – Signs of Dismissing Transcripts (Ds1 – Ds4)
Day 3 – Morning – Assessing for Unresolved abuse, loss, or trauma vs Cannot Classify
Afternoon – Putting it all Together
Sign Up Now for an Early Registration Discount
Discounted price for the 3-day workshop - $375
- April 4, 2025 - April 6, 2025
- 11:00 AM PST - 2:00 PM PST
- Friday thru Sunday
Your Instructor
Dr. Zack Bein is a psychologist, a teacher, a certified meditation instructor, group facilitator, one-on-one coach, and the Founder of the Adult Attachment Program. He was trained by Dr Dan Brown and currently works closely with Dr David Elliott. He relies heavily on Brown & Elliot’s “Three Pillar” model of repairing attachment difficulties, which includes the Ideal Parent Figure method. He has also been practicing and studying meditation for 20 years.
He is trained in administering and scoring the Adult Attachment Interview by Howard and Miriam Steele at the New School in Manhattan. The AAI is the gold standard assessment of attachment styles in adults.
Dr. Bein also works closely with David Elliott, Ph,D, the co-creator of the model, to teach the 3 Pillar Model to clinicians, therapists, coaches, who wish to incorporate healing of attachment disturbances in their work. Zack is also the sole author of an upcoming chapter in “Clinical Applications of the AAI, Part 2,” where he details how the Three Pillars therapist uses the AAI in an ethically minded way to inform the work. That will be out hopefully in early 2024.
Dr. Zack Bein has completed and passed the “Reliability Test” from the AAI Institute and is officially a reliable coder of Adult Attachment Interviews. He is sole author of an upcoming chapter which details the ethical use of the AAI in Integrative Attachment Therapy. This course will not be for any official certification, but will educate you enough to be proficient to administer and interpret for clinical purposes.
Questions?
Testimonial #12
I had weekly sessions with Dr Zack Bein from August 2023 to September 2024, using the Three Pillars method of Adult Attachment Repair. The work we did together in those 13 months treated issues - anxiety, depression, low energy - that 16 years of therapy using other modalities (CBT, ACT, DBT, IFS and Somatic Experiencing) didn't address.Some of the benefits I've experienced are:
- remission of depression
- less anxiety
- more energy
- confidence to ask for what I need and want
- confidence to express disagreement
- able to show up for and be more comfortable in professional, personal and intimate relationships
- not losing hours or days to being stuck in anxiety & depression
- dramatic improvement in the quality and quantity of my work as an engineer
I wholeheartedly recommend Dr Zack Bein and the Three Pillars method of Adult Attachment Repair.
I trained with Dr Bein in the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and found the experience quite edifying. Besides being genuinely supportive with real warmth and personal care, Dr Bein is expert in this modality, providing tips, practice sessions, and advice that only comes from years of experience. This information and training is hard to find and immensely valuable, both as an experience and education.
As a trauma specialist often working in the areas of CPTSD and attachment traumas, I was thrilled to find Dr. Zack as both a therapist and trainer in Three Pillars therapy and the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) protocol. Zack offers detailed and knowledgeable discussion of attachment theory, screening methods and the skillful delivery of the IPF protocol. His teachings are clear and delivered in a grounded and present manner. I highly recommend him as a therapist, supervisor and trainer.
"I have been working with Josh at The Adult Attachment Program using the IPF Protocol for 10 months. I was able to identify and make incredible progress in my attachment issues and have seen nothing short of profound results. I cannot recommend IPF via The Adult Attachment Program enough. Josh is an excellent coach who seems to effortlessly guide our sessions. I end every one of them with new insight and lasting positive impression. My life is immeasurably more positive and my gratitude is boundless."
6/1/23
I have been working with Zack for about 4 months now and have seen an incredible change in myself - a huge reduction in stress and anxiety, more energy, and significantly more day to day happiness and desire to go after and achieve my goals. The method we have been using has been the only thing that has succeeded in shifting my mental state in this way - despite having tried several therapies before. I really believe that I've found an answer here to what I was looking for previously. Thanks so much Zack!
Excellent therapy. Zack has a deep understanding of attachment dynamics and has applied his method to stimulate profound experiences of healing in me. I find him genuine, warm and empathic.
I am a long time participant in counseling, I have even tried EMDR in the past…but this approach has been life changing for me. Granted you get back what you put in, as with really any type. BUT Zack and team are really great and knowledgeable. I wish I found this sooner.
Zack is a kind, attuned, empathic therapist. I've been working with him using Ideal Parent Figure protocol for a few years now, and it has changed my life for the better, more so than any other modality/system I've used. Zack has a very unique skillset, due to his IPF training, attachment theory expertise, and meditation background. Highly recommend.