This webinar introduces the Adolescent Story Stem Profile (ASSP), an online assessment designed to help practitioners explore adolescents’ internal worlds, including attachment representations, affect regulation, mentalization, and interpersonal functioning.
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| Ticket Type | Price |
|---|---|
| ACAMH paying Members (Online, Concession) | FREE (Join now and save) |
| ACAMH Learn Account Holders | £5 |
| Non Members | £5 |
| ACAMH Undergraduate/ Postgraduate Members | FREE (Join now and save) |
| LMIC Members | FREE (Join now and save) |
Who should attend
Clinicians, therapists, doctors, social workers, teachers, researchers, academics, students, parents, carers, families, and interested individuals.
About the session
This webinar introduces the Adolescent Story Stem Profile (ASSP), an online assessment designed to help practitioners explore adolescents’ internal worlds, including attachment representations, affect regulation, mentalization, and interpersonal functioning.
Developed as an extension of the well-established Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP)—used internationally in clinical practice, training, and research for more than 25 years—the ASSP adapts the story stem methodology to reflect the developmental challenges and increasing relational complexity of adolescence.
The ASSP presents young people with a series of carefully constructed story beginnings depicting emotionally and relationally significant situations. Adolescents are invited to watch some online video stems and respond to questions about each story, and their responses are systematically coded to identify recurring themes and patterns. These can then inform psychological formulation, intervention planning, and therapeutic work.
The webinar will outline the theoretical foundations of the ASSP, drawing on attachment theory, developmental psychology, and mentalization theory, before presenting the emerging evidence supporting its use with adolescents. Participants will be introduced to the assessment itself and shown how it can be integrated into clinical practice through illustrative case examples of adolescent responses.
The session will also review the growing research literature on the ASSP, including the work of Zhang and Hillman, highlighting its psychometric development and applications across both clinical and research settings.
Whether you are new to story stem assessments or already familiar with the SSAP, this webinar will provide a practical introduction to the ASSP as a developmentally sensitive assessment that offers valuable insights into adolescents’ social, emotional, and relational functioning.
Meet the speaker
Dr. Saul Hillman is a Senior Research Fellow at Anna Freud and an Honorary Lecturer at University College London. Saul Hillman has developed the story stem (SSAP) over the last 25 years whilst also creating the adolescent story stem (ASSP). Both these instruments are used with traumatised and at risk populations (e.g..children in care). He teaches and supervises across several different postgraduate programmes through both institutions. Within his research role, he primarily researched and led on studies around attachment, mentalization, trauma and grief. Much of his work has been in the field of children who were considered ‘at-risk’ including looked-after, traumatised and bereaved populations. He was worked with Five Rivers Child Care for the last ten years.