Affect integration was operationalized through the Affect Consciousness (AC) construct as degrees of awareness, tolerance, nonverbal expression and conceptual expression of 11 affects. These aspects are assessed through a semi-structured Affect Consciousness Interview (ACI) and separate rating scales (Affect Consciousness Scales (ACSs)) developed for use in research and clinical work with adults with psychopathological disorders. Age-adjusted changes were made in the interview and rating system. This study explored the applicability of the adjusted ACI to a sample of 11-year-old children with internalizing problems through examining inter-rater reliability of the adjusted ACI, along with relationships between the AC aspects and aspects of mental health as symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, social competence, besides general intelligence. Satisfactory inter-rater reliability was found, as well as consistent relationships between the AC aspects and the various aspects of mental health, a finding which coincides with previous research. The finding indicates that the attainment of the capacity to deal adaptively with affect is probably an important contributor to the development of adequate social competence and maybe in the prevention of psychopathology in children. The results indicate that the adjusted ACI and rating scales are useful tools in treatment planning with children at least from the age of 11 years.

Affect integration is considered central to mental health. We define affect integration in terms of the affect consciousness construct as degrees of awareness, tolerance, nonverbal, and conceptual expression of 11 affects (Monsen, Eilertsen, Melgård, & Odegård, 1996). We assessed the construct using a child-adapted version of the semistructured Affect Consciousness Interview and separate scoring scales (Taarvig, Solbakken, Grova, & Monsen, 2015). We administered this interview to 8 children who met the criteria for an anxiety disorder to examine the following questions: (a) Which of a large number of specific affects recur as especially problematic? (b) In what ways do the children cope with the identified affects? To address these questions, we used a qualitative analyses method, based on the affect consciousness model. The anxious children exhibited problems in the way they experienced and coped with a larger number of affects compared with what previous studies on affect integration have reported. Affect couplings were found to be central to the problematic ways in which specific affects were experienced and coped with. Persistent couplings of affects conformed with theoretical perspectives on affect integration and with previous findings obtained in adults with an anxiety disorder, using the same method as applied in this study (Sønderland, 2010). It may be warranted to regard affect experience, particularly coupling of affects, as fundamental to understanding the continuity in anxiety disorders from childhood to adulthood. Our research may contribute to the development of more differentiated treatment models for anxious children.

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