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Assessment of Representational Risk in Parent-Child Relationships

This training focuses on assessing parental representations using the Parent Development Interview, helping practitioners understand attachment, risk and resilience in parent–child relationships and apply this knowledge in clinical and research contexts.

About this training

This training will provide a theoretical overview of the features of parental representations that are associated with risk and resilience in the parent-child relationship. This compliments the Reflective Functioning (RF) on the PDI course.

Trainees will also be introduced to a coding system that can be used to assess these features in PDI transcripts, the “Assessment of Representational Risk” (ARR). The system has been used in coding e.g. clinical, prison, war traumatized, and substance-abusing samples of mothers, and has been found to be very helpful and informative in these (high) risk samples. The PDI RF coding system provides one method of assessing the quality of how parents think and talk about their relationship with their child, i.e. the mentalizing capacity.  However, the PDI can be used to assess other clinically relevant aspects of parental representations which are complex and multifaceted.

Aims of this training

The aim of this training is to provide participants with a broader multidimensional view on some of the other current theoretical and empirical ideas around the assessment of parental representations. This will enable practitioners to further their understanding of, and capacity to:

  • familiarise participants with current research and theory relating to parental representations and attachment

  • introduce the Assessment of Representational Risk (ARR) coding frame

  • give participants some experience of coding interviews with the ARR coding frame.

Who should attend?

This course is suitable for clinical, academic and research professionals working with children and their caregivers who are interested in learning more about the assessment of parent-child relationships.

Michelle Sleed, Deputy Programme Director of the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at Anna Freud/University College London.

Michelle Sleed

Deputy Programme Director of the Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at Anna Freud/UCL

  • Michelle has a respectful approach, allowing differences of opinion or experience to be safely explored. I very much appreciated using real transcripts, and the context about the dyads which Michelle was able to provide, as appropriate.

    Participant, 2025

  • The course content is highly relevant and very interesting. Michelle's teaching style is informative, inclusive, well-paced, thoughtful and sensitive. She facilitated an excellent online learning experience.

    Participant, 2025

  • Michelle is a great trainer. The content is very interesting, both clinically and research wise.

    Participant, 2025

Interested in commissioning training for your team?

We are interested in working with teams or organisations who would like to commission a bespoke version of this training. Get in touch with our dedicated team.

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