Certificate in attachment-focused adult psychotherapy: Advanced course

Dates: November 26, 27, December 7, and 8, 2026

Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET

CE hours: 24

Facilitators: Annette Kussin, MSW, RSW, RMFT, and Devra Igra, MSW, RSW.

This training is suitable for: Experienced therapists who have knowledge about child attachment and experience working with adults. The training will provide an advanced level of assessing and treating adults from an attachment-focused model of psychotherapy.

Client age category: For professionals who work with adult clients.

Prerequisite: Integrating an adult attachment approach to psychotherapy webinar from SickKids CCMH Learning Institute OR equivalent training/knowledge on adult attachment.

Please note: Participants of this program will receive a "Certificate of Participation" and does not certify participants as certified adult attachment therapists. This is a four-day program, you must complete all four days in order to receive the certificate of participation.  

Description: All therapists will find it extremely useful to understand their clients from the perspective of adult attachment. This perspective offers a non-judgmental and hopeful means for both the therapist and clients to understand problems in self-perception and problems in relationships. Although adult attachments develop as a continuum of child attachment and are deeply formed by adulthood, they can be changed so that adults can feel more secure and create mutually satisfying relationships.

This training will help participants assess the adult attachment category of their clients, by understanding the behaviour of each category and offering a formal adult attachment assessment.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will be offered an attachment-focused therapeutic model that offers both general stages for change and specific strategies for each attachment category. This model will be explored in depth, using case examples from each category of attachment.
• Participants will develop an understanding of the neurology of adult attachment. They will be able to apply an attachment paradigm to known problems and diagnoses in the mental health field, such as borderline personality disorder (BPD).
• The relationship between the therapist and client is the central vehicle for change. Therefore, participants will be encouraged to be aware of their own attachment category and how this influences their therapeutic relationships.

Topics covered:

Attachment as a lifelong model for relationships

• Understanding the theory of attachment - connection & safety
• Attachment and neurology
• Genetics and epigenetics
• Attachment and cultural/societal boundaries
• Adult attachments: purpose, classifications and descriptions
• Assessing for adult attachment:
  • Behavioral and clinical presentation
  • Adult attachment interviews (AAI): accessing conscious attachment
  • Adult attachment interviews: accessing unconscious attachment
• Practicing the AAI

Assessing for adult attachments

• Learning to conduct a modified and score a modified AAI
• Attachment classification systems
• Scales for experience of parents
• Scales of organized states of mind: Secure, dismissing & preoccupied
• Scales of disorganized/unresolved states of mind
• Secure attachment: Coherence of transcript, metacognitive monitoring and overall coherence
• The therapist: Understanding ones’ own attachment
• Research on therapist client attachments

Treatment model of attachment-focused adult therapy

• Goal of attachment-focused therapy
• Model of attachment-focused psychotherapy
• Feedback and reflecting on the attachment category
• Therapy: The journey to earned security
• Creating a secure base
• Memories of early childhood are explored in more depth 
• Connecting current relationships from the awareness of attachment
• Mourning losses: Early losses of attachment figures and mourning the longing for what one never had
• The therapeutic relationship
• Loss of self as one changes
• Mindful acceptance of the limits of one’s attachment
• Risking change in everyday life 
• Termination 
• Externalizing change
• Each phase will be explored in-depth with case examples, videos and role-playing

This certificate program is co-facilitated by Annette Kussin and her daughter, Devra Igra — a mother-daughter team whose combined clinical expertise and personal connection offer a uniquely rich perspective on the topic of Adult Attachment.​

Participants will complete this course with a deeper understanding of secure and insecure adult attachment and how to use this understanding to assist their clients to redevelop secure adult attachment or earned security.