Mental health articles

The Adult Attachment Interview
More recently, Mary Main and co-workers have developed the Adult
Attachment Interview (AAI) protocol, a semi-structured interview that includes
a series of increasingly targeted questions and prompts designed to elicit
memories and representations of early attachment relationships (George, Kaplan
& Main, 1996).
This standardised interview undertaken with adults is transcribed and rated,
not only on the content of what is said, but how the adult talks about their early
experiences. Interviews are classified as:
• Secure/autonomous or free (F)
• Dismissing (D)
• Preoccupied or enmeshed (E) or
• Unresolved/disorganised (U).
These categories correspond to the infant classifications. (See Adult
Attachment Interview classifications and corresponding patterns of infant
Strange Situation behaviour in Holmes [2001] and Hesse [1999].)
The significance of the AAI for infant mental health is that it is possible to
predict with approximately 70 per cent accuracy from AAIs performed on
expectant parents what the attachment classifications of their infants will be 12
months later (van IJzendoorn, 1995).
For more