Joni Lavick, LMFT maintains a private practice in Santa Monica treating individuals and couples. She has consistently provided clinical supervision for 30 years.

She is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles with a Master’s in Counseling Psychology and has a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Joni’s philosophy and clinical practice is asset-based, integrates body and mind, and holds that it is the therapeutic relationship that heals. Her Universal Treatment Plan is the distillation of 35 years of training and experience to help clients grow by identifying strengths and enhancing resources. She makes strong points stronger and the weak ones fall away.

Joni has been working with HIV positive individuals since 1988. In 2005 she received a National HIV Leadership Award from thebody.com. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapists Association’s honored her expertise and advocacy in 2000, with their Annual Community Service Award. She is a former Director of Mental Health Services at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and is a member of the teaching faculty at the Insight Center in Los Angeles.

Joni has over 35 years of experience treating couples and individuals for sexual compulsivity, methamphetamine addiction, alcoholism and other substances, depression and anxiety. 

In addition to her expertise with HIV, addiction, and LGBT issues, she has special training in the scoring and administration of Mary Main’s Adult Attachment Interview, studied Intersubjective Systems Theory with Robert Stolorow, and is certified as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner by Peter Levine’s Foundation for Human Enrichment.

Her publications include “Trauma and HIV: Frozen Moments, Frozen Lives” BETA, Spring 2008 and “Conquering Anxiety; Living with HIV” BETA, Winter 2007.

An experienced public speaker she has presented at many national conferences, university classrooms, and community based organizations.

Joni Lavick, LMFT

Clinical Application of the
Adult Attachment Interview

October 19, 2024
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Pacific Time via Zoom

This workshop is designed to demonstrate the clinical application of the AAI and does not substitute for the extensive training necessary to properly score the instrument.

Attachment is learned behavior passed on from parent to child. Insecure attachment strategies manifest in maladaptive interpersonal relationships and failed attempts to resolve or repair wounds resulting from past mis-attunements or traumatic experiences. Insecure attachment creates affect-regulation problems characterized by mood disturbances, poor impulse control, substance abuse and dependence, and the lack of ability for self-regulation.

This workshop is designed to help you understand your patients' attachment strategy through the clinical use of Mary Main’s Adult Attachment Interview. We will explore the structure and function of the AAI’s 20 question assessment. The inventory begins with early childhood attachment, separation, and trauma assessment, and shifts to attachment from adolescence to adulthood. I will discuss organized attachment strategies in infants and adults.

There will be a demonstration of the meat of the AAI followed by a dyadic experiential breakout where you will give and answer parts of the AAI.  Following this interaction we’ll evaluate what we have learned.

We will move on to questions for trauma assessment and changes from adolescence to adulthood. From the evaluation perspective, we will focus on becoming resolved or unresolved to trauma and how this impedes sustaining secure attachment. This section will also include demonstration and experiential dyads.

The training will end with ideas for the formation of an attachment repair treatment plan and interventions to guide your clients toward repair of insecure attachment. We will discuss Dan Brown’s Ideal Parent Model and how to utilize it with clients. Analysis of how attachment strategies reveal themselves in the transference will also be explored.

It is my goal to teach you skills you can use immediately.

Instructional Objectives

Participants will be able to:

Use the Adult Attachment Interview in a one-session framework;

Be able to listen for and understand the adult categories of organized attachment;

Identify your own attachment strategy;

Describe models for attachment repair;

Use the AAI to help identify the attachment patterns of your clients.

Continuing Education

Continuing Education credits are available for this training.  

Psychologists: The Insight Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Insight Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This course provides 4 CE.

MFTs / LCSWs / LPCCs:  The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts APA authorized continuing education. This course provides 4 CE.