Research Matters Forum - ‘Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP): An Overview'

This Forum will cover the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP) and its use as an assessment of a child’s attachment and internal representations. The SSAP consists of 13 narrative stems, to which the child provides their own story completions; information is thus gained directly from the child in a non-threatening, developmentally appropriate context with their responses systematically coded and benchmarked against data from children in the same age range. The webinar will outline the development and theoretical context of the assessment, illustrate its use through clinical case examples, discuss its clinical applications, and review research evidence supporting its usefulness in high-risk populations, including adopted children.

Story stem methods, including the SSAP, are psychoanalytically informed assessment tools rooted in attachment theory. They are widely used to explore children’s internal representations of relationships, emotional regulation, and expectations of caregiving in response to mild stress or conflict.

The SSAP is a well-established and widely used assessment tool for children aged 4–10 years, employed by Child Psychotherapists as well as other practitioners and therapists working in child mental health, social care, and allied clinical settings. Through children’s narrative completions of standardised story beginnings, the SSAP provides a rich, clinically meaningful window into attachment-related functioning, supporting formulation, intervention planning, and reflective clinical practice.

The presentation will be facilitated by Dr Saul Hillman alongside Octavia Wilkinson, and chaired by Dr Elena Della Rosa, Deputy Director of Scientific Research.

Dr Saul Hillman:

Dr Saul Hillman is a Senior Research Fellow at Anna Freud and an Honorary Lecturer at University College London. He is the Lead Trainer in the Story Stem (SSAP) training and has been involved in its development and training over the last 25 years. His PhD was specifically on the SSAP and he has since developed the Adolescent Story Stems (ASSP). He also 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 adopted, foster, residential care and traumatised populations.

Octavia Wilkinson:

Octavia Wilkinson is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist who qualified from the BPF in 2011. She is based in the north-east of England, where she works clinically in a school and a university. She also runs an infant observation seminar group for the BPF.

Octavia has been a story stem trainer since 2013 and has used the tool extensively as an expert witness for the family courts and in CAMHS.

Dr Elena Della Rosa:

Dr Elena Della Rosa - Elena trained at the Tavistock Centre, has worked in the NHS and has been teaching at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. She is currently working in private practice. She has an interest in research and is a research supervisor on the clinical training at the Tavistock. She is Deputy Director of the Scientific Committee at the ACP.

ABOUT RESEARCH MATTERS FORUM: 

The aim of this bi-monthly forum is to bring together child psychotherapists who want to learn more about research, to enhance their knowledge, skills and to find other colleagues who may be interested in similar topics for potential collaboration.

The research carried out by members has been spurred by their clinical practice and interest in clinical issues. This discussion forum will enable dialogue on how to tackle clinical dilemmas and ethical practice in research.