Clinical Application of the
Adult Attachment Interview
with
Joni Lavick, MFT
Recorded on February 19, 2022
$99 – Tuition
Attachment is learned behavior passed on from parent to child. Insecure attachment strategies manifest in maladaptive interpersonal relationships and failed attempts to resolve or repair wounds resulting from past traumatic experiences. Insecure attachment creates affect-regulation problems characterized by mood disturbances, poor impulse control, substance abuse and dependence, and the lack of ability for self-regulation.
This training will provide a guide for the use Adult Attachment Interview in the repair of attachment disturbances.
Getting CEU’s doesn’t have to be dull. Come join us!
I’ll explain the structure and function of the AAI’s 20 question assessment. The inventory begins with early childhood attachment, separation, trauma assessment, and shifts in attachment from adolescence to adulthood. I will discuss organized attachment strategies in infants and adults.
There will be a demonstration of the meat of the AAI followed by a dyadic experiential breakout where you will give and answer parts of the AAI. Following this interaction we’ll evaluate what we have learned.
We will move on to questions for trauma assessment and changes from adolescence to adulthood. From the evaluation perspective we will focus on becoming resolved to trauma or remaining unresolved and how this matrix impacts sustaining secure attachment. This section will also include demonstration and experiential dyads.
The training will end with ideas for the formation of a treatment plan and interventions to guide your clients toward repair of insecure attachment. Analysis of how attachment strategies reveal themselves in the transference will also be explored.
At this workshop you will learn:
- To use the Adult Attachment Interview in a one session framework and how to listen for and understand the adult categories of organized attachment.
- Identify your own attachment strategy
- Describe models for attachment repair
- Use the AAI to help identify the attachment patterns of your clients.
Joni Lavick, LMFT maintains a private practice in Santa Monica. She is a clinical supervisor at Counseling West, and Antioch University, and works with families coping with addiction at The Canyon Recovery Center.
She is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles with a Master’s in Counseling Psychology and has a Bachelors degree in Social Work from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Joni’s philosophy and clinical practice is asset-based, integrates body and mind, and holds that it is the therapeutic relationship that heals. Her Universal Treatment Plan is the distillation of 25 years of training and experience to help clients grow through identifying strengths and enhancing resources.
Joni has been working with HIV positive individuals since 1988. In 2005 she received a National HIV Leadership Award from thebody.com. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapists Association’s honored her expertise and advocacy in 2000, with their Annual Community Service Award. She is a former Director of Mental Health Services at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. Joni is a member of the teaching faculty at the Insight Center in Los Angeles.
She has over 20 years of experience treating individuals with sexual compulsivity, methamphetamine addiction, alcoholism and other substances, depression and anxiety. Currently she serves on the board of The Women’s Association for Addiction Treatment.
In addition to her expertise with HIV, addiction, and LGBT issues, she has special training in the scoring and administration of Mary Main’s Adult Attachment Interview, studied Intersubjective Systems Theory with Robert Stolorow, and is certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner by Peter Levine’s Foundation for Human Enrichment.
Her publications include “Trauma and HIV: Frozen Moments, Frozen Lives” BETA, Spring 2008 and “Conquering Anxiety; Living with HIV” BETA, Winter 2007. An experienced public speaker she has presented at many national conferences, university classrooms, and community based organizations.