Working with Attachment Trauma

The Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) has served as a prominent assessment tool for adults and adolescents internationally for over 20 years. This book introduces the AAP and illustrates the powerful potential for implementing the AAP in clinical practice for assessment, client conceptualization, treatment planning, analysis, and as a therapeutic guide.

Chapters discuss the full scope of incomplete pathological mourning for attachment trauma, including for the first time in the field Failure to Mourn and Preoccupation with Personal Suffering. Seasoned clinical researchers and psychotherapists provide a snapshot of their clients' unique attachment characteristics and defensive exclusion strategies as assessed by the AAP, and discuss how to use this information in treatment, as well as how to present the AAP results to their clients.

This book introduces readers to how the AAP can be used with adolescents, adults, and couples, and in custody evaluation and foster care.

Carol George, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned attachment expert and provides extensive teaching and consultation in the clinical application of attachment. Her books include the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System, Attachment Disorganization, and Disorganized Attachment and Caregiving.

Julie Wargo Aikins, Ph.D., is an expert in developmental psychopathology and parent-child relationships and consults on the clinical application of attachment theory. She conducts research that includes various measures of attachment, writes and presents on attachment theory, and trains on the use of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System.

Melissa Lehmann, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist at the Center for Therapeutic Assessment. Her practice involves assessment and therapy with clients who have experienced attachment trauma, as well as providing consultation to other clinicians in this area.