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This article summarizes the development and validation of the Adult Attachment Projective System (AAP), a measure we developed from the Bowlby-Ainsworth developmental tradition to assess adult attachment status. The AAP has demonstrated excellent concurrent validity with the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984/1985/1996; Main & Goldwyn, 1985-1994; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2003), interjudge reliability, and test-retest reliability, with no effects of verbal intelligence or social desirability. The AAP coding and classification system and application in clinical and community samples are summarized. Finally, we introduce the 3 other articles that are part of this Special Section and discuss the use of the AAP in therapeutic assessment and treatment.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children classified as controlling in attachment differ from children classified into the traditional Ainsworth attachment categories in their symbolic representations of attachment and level of behavior problems. Sixty-nine middle-class kindergarten children and their mothers participated in a laboratory separation and reunion. Children enacted doll-play stories about attachment-related themes. A four-group representation classification scheme was developed from the doll-play transcripts of 27 children. Mothers (n = 44) completed Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist and teachers (n = 40) completed a 30-item inventory of classroom behavior. Results showed significant agreement between the representational system and Main and Cassidy's classification system (1988) for children's reunionbehavior. The doll-play of controlling children was characterized by themes of catastrophe and helplessness or by complete inhibition of play and suggested disorganization of representational processes. Controlling children also were described by mothers and teachers as significantly more aggressive than other children. The results validate the distinction between the controlling and traditional classification groups and suggest that controlling children are at risk for behavioral maladaptation at home and at school.

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In this paper, we describe the development of and our preliminary work to empirically validate the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP), a new adult attachment classification system that is based on the analysis of individuals' responses to a set of seven attachment-related drawings. The AAP classification system uses evaluations of three dimensions (Discourse, Content and Defensive Processing) to designate four major adult classification groups: Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied, and Unresolved. Preliminary validation of the AAP is based on 75 participants drawn from three separate samples. The results indicate strong interjudge reliability and convergent agreement between the AAP and Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) classifications. The AAP, thus, appears to be a promising developmental measure for assessing the representation of attachment in adults. Contributions of the AAP to attachment theory and research are discussed. The similarities and differences between AAP stories and other child and adult representational measures are also discussed.