Attachment-based therapy in the life cycle

ATTACHMENT-BASED THERAPY

IN THE LIFE CYCLE

with HOWARD STEELE and MIRIAM STEELE

Attachment-based interventions are proven effective, on scientific grounds, in promoting secure attachment.
The course, divided into two sessions, focuses on working with people within the entire life cycle.

Clinical intervention strategies include home visiting programs, parent-child relationship work, group and family therapies. The authors describe how they developed their respective interventions and which clinical population they target.

For each clinical area, the conceptual and empirical basis of each approach, how sessions are structured and conducted, assessment procedures, particular techniques used, and training objectives, are presented.

PROGRAM

Session 1

•     Introduction to John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth
•     Clinical work with infants/children: Strange situation, Q-sort attachment,
•     Clinical work with preschool children: attachment history completion task (ASTC)
•     Clinical work with school-age children: ASTC for 6-8 y.o., Friends and Family
•     Interview (FFI) for 9-15 year olds, Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)

Session 2

•     Focus on experiences of loss or trauma
•     Introduction to Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and reflective functioning: AAI, Parent
•     Developmental Interview (PDI), Reaction to Diagnosis Interview (RDI) --- Sample 5-minute talk, all amenable to coding in terms of reflective functioning.
•     The operationalization of mentalization
•     Clinical work with adolescents: the AAIs, the CONNECT model (Marlene Moretti)
•     Clinical work with adults: AAIs, Ideal Parent Figure Protocol (IPFP)
•     Clinical work with families: be aware of the script the family follows, what is the story they tell themselves to make sense of who they are? Is a child the scapegoat?
•     Encourage flexibility
•     Review, update internal operating models of self and others and family.

THE SPEAKERS

Howard Steele is director of clinical psychology and co-director of the Center for Attachment Research at the New School for Social Research in New York. In our editions, he edited Adult Attachment Interview (with M. Steele, 2010) and The Attachment-Focused Interventions (with M. Steele, 2019).

Miriam Steele is professor of psychology and co-director of the Center for Attachment Research at the New School for Social Research in New York. In our editions, she edited Adult Attachment Interview (with H. Steele, 2010) and The attachment-focused interventions (with H. Steele, 2019).

 Howard and Miriam Steele devoted their professional lives to the study and dissemination of attachment-based clinical interventions, both in childhood and adulthood. Co-authors with Peter Fonagy, Mary Target and Linda Mayes of the volume Developmental Science and Psychoanalysis: Integration and Innovation (2007), authors of the handbook translated into Italian for Raffaello Cortina Gli interventi focalizzati sull'attaccamento (2020) and Adult Attachment Interview. Clinical Applications (2010).