The Family Attachment Interview: Moving Attachment Theory Beyond the Dyad

Attachment theory offers a profound conceptual shift in moving beyond individualised explanations to relational ones. With its battery of assessments based on understanding parent-child interaction and relational narratives, the field has built a considerable evidence base for understanding problems as residing between people rather than in people. In this paper, however, we suggest that this very success has led to such understanding ossifying at a dyadic level – a child’s relationship with a specific parent, neglecting the impact of co-parenting relationships on child attachment. For this reason, we sought a means of moving attachment assessment to a triadic level, exploring a child’s attachment to his parents’ relationship not just his parents as individuals. The essential dyadic nature of current attachment interviews such as the Adult Attachment interview (AAI) and the Parent Development Interview (PDI) we argue, means that key aspects of potential attachment self-protective organisation may be missing. For this reason, we developed out of these interviews, a Family Attachment Interview (FAI), that explores both childhood attachment and current caregiving in triadic terms. This project charts the development, validation, exploration and uses of the FAI

Attachment theory looks at how we manage relationships with specific people (e.g our mother or father) - however we don't just manage people we manage relationships (e.g how our mother and father got on). Children are affected not just by how they get on with their key caregivers but how their caregivers relate to each other. We have developed an interview to explore this, the Family Attachment Interview (FAI). This project charts its development, and research about its use and impact.