The interview is carried out with the family group, broadly along the lines of the topics covered in the Adult Attachment Interview. The interviewer asks family members to talk about current relationships and how the family responds to safety, discipline, and attachment stressors. Ratings are made of the quality of shared thinking, affect regulation, communication, recognition of the influence of past events, and the balance between intimacy and individuality. The researchers have refined a theory of attachment processes in families, have reviewed a substantial number of tapes and transcripts, and have finalized the majority of the scales. In addition, they have identified clinical and nonclinical samples with which to establish interrater reliability.
Further work is needed on the scales and their application to family interviews.
The ecology of attachment in families.