Assessment of Representational Risk on the Parent Development Interview (ARR-PDI)

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.

Testimonial

“The instructor, Michelle Sleed, is kind and shares her knowledge in a way that promotes a deep learning experience.”

Aims of the 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 assess:

• A broad range of parental states of mind in relation to their child.

• Parental states of mind that predict relational disturbances, many of which are often under-recognised.

• The relationship between parental states of mind and arousal, mentalization and affect regulation.

• Parental representations that can serve as starting points for intervention. 

Who is this training 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.