[The adult attachment projective (AAP) - psychometric properties and new reserach results]

George, West and Pettem developed a new measure, the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP) to assess attachment representation in adults. The AAP is comprised of a set of eight drawings, one neutral scene and seven scenes of attachment situations. Although the pictures were drawn as projective stimuli, the method of administration combines projective and interview techniques in the form of a semi-structured interview. In this paper the coding procedure and attachment classifications of the AAP will shortly be described. The current results on reliability and convergent validity are reported. Developmental studies examining correlates of attachment during the preschool-age years, as well as adult attachment classification and foster mothers' perceptions of their relationship with their at risk foster children give first evidence for the predicitve validity of the AAP. The results of a recent study with dysthymic women using the AAP add to the increasing number of studies that have identified an association between preoccupied attachment and depression. This study encourages the use of the AAP in a broader clinical context. The modified application of the AAP using functional MRI opens a new approach to assess neural correlates of attachment representation in patients with a Borderline Personality Disorder compared to controls, and other clinical groups.