Validity of a Brief Interview for Assessing Reflective Function

The Reflective Function Scale was developed by Fonagy and colleagues (1998) to empirically measure the capacity to mentalize thoughts, intentions, feelings, and beliefs about oneself and others. Reflective Function (RF) has been reliably measured by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; Main and Gold...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 2012-06, Vol.60 (3), p.577-589
Main Authors: Rutimann, Daniel, D., Meehan, Kevin, B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Female
Humans
Interview, Psychological
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Object Attachment
Personality Development
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Reproducibility of Results
Techniques and methods
Theory of Mind
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Summary:The Reflective Function Scale was developed by Fonagy and colleagues (1998) to empirically measure the capacity to mentalize thoughts, intentions, feelings, and beliefs about oneself and others. Reflective Function (RF) has been reliably measured by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; Main and Goldwyn 1998), but its length (45–90 minutes) and the labor required to administer, transcribe, and code for RF may be prohibitive for many research studies. The present study measured the reliability and validity of the Brief Reflective Function Interview (BRFI; Rudden, Milrod, and Target 2005) by administering it to 27 undergraduate participants previously assessed using the AAI in another research study (Morrison 2010). The BRFI was coded reliably by two independent raters (ICC = .79) and yielded a highly significant positive correlation (r = .71) between RF scores obtained by BRFI and by AAI. The average administration time of the BRFI (M = 24.15 minutes) was significantly shorter than that of the AAI (M = 44.65 minutes). These findings suggest that the BRFI may offer a reliable, valid, and streamlined alternative to the AAI as a measure for coding RF.
ISSN:0003-0651
1941-2460
DOI:10.1177/0003065112445616