A Search for Survivors: Accounts of the lethal “attachment therapy” that targets orphans, adoptees a

[icarus]

From copperbadge: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive ... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
- C.S. LEWIS

Q: What is attachment therapy?
A: Attachment therapy (widely known as "holding therapy" or"rage-reduction") is a torturous, ineffective and entirely unscientific practice that preys on orphaned adoptees and foster children who already have a history of abuse.

Attachment therapy techniques rely on forceful physical coercion and restraint, non-consensual touching, verbal abuse, intimidation, enforced eye contact and punishments related to food, water and air intake. It is rejected by the mainstream psychiatric community and is officially banned by many states, but the practice continues to this day.

Many cases of attachment therapy have culminated in the death of the child patient.

Whether you are interested or not, whether you want to read this or not, I hope you will at least click...

This link: A SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS.

copperbadge is right. We need to make sure that the blog above turns up when people research Attachment Therapy.

There is a modern therapy that is not the 1970s attachment therapy. Here is the difference between the two methods:

Attachment Therapy in the 1970s that led to kids' deaths
- strangers holding child down while the parent watches and does nothing
- deliberately inducing fear
- withholding water and food
- smothering the child with blankets and pillows (the cause of those deaths)
- rubbing vomit and spit in the child's face

New Treatment described in this radio report
- holding child like a baby
- forced physical proximity
- forced dependency; child is not allowed to initiate, they must trust the parent will provide without asking

The difference is night and day. I have seen abusive practices portrayed in a positive light in the media based on selective anecdotal evidence that leaves out or downplays important (and potentially embarrassing) facts. It's less common for the abused to exaggerate what they experienced. They have nothing to defend.

Let your conscience be your guide. It is the method that makes the difference. Attachment therapy has been discredited because of its early history, and rightfully so. I am skeptical of attempts to put it in a positive light.

ETA: According to this which is endorsed by the American Psychological Association, the whole theory behind both both of these attachment therapies is flawed. They are appealing to parents because they blame the child and the child's past caregivers. And, thank god, they say what sounded strange to me in the first place -- the unrealistic expectation that a child who's been abused be suddenly trusting and attached is the parents' expectation.

I checked out some websites on attachment therapy. They claimed that past kids with attachment disorder have grown up to be sociopaths, and listed Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler as people with attachment disorder. This hyperbole raised some red flags for me.

Sure enough, the task force paper above states: "There is no empirical scientific support for the idea that children with attachment problems grow up to be psychopaths and prey on society." Chaffin, pg. 80

In light of the evidence, Attachment Therapy is a harmful pseudo-therapy. All that varies is the degree of harm.

Comments

[gabilady.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely horrified everyday at what adults inflict upon children. I can not imagine what makes a person feel this is o.k. behavior.

It's like that religious book series for parents on how to get their kids to eat good food, where they starve children.


ARGH!!!


Thanks for sharing.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

This description of "attachment therapy" is out of date. I know several parents who adopted older children, and they've encountered problems because people continue to put forth this concept of attachment therapy.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm not following you exactly. I wouldn't care about definition, what I care about is methods. Are you saying that the methods have changed? What have they changed from and what have they changed to? If there has been a change in methods, what are the reasons for that change?

Bear in mind that I am very skeptical.

[ursula]

There's a really good This American Life episode which gives a profile of a mother & her son, adopted from a Romanian orphanage, and describes the therapy for his attachment disorder. It's intense and weird, but not cruel. They do talk about how earlier attachment therapies have a bad name.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

This report specifically states that what this mother and adopted kid from Romania isn't attachment therapy, though it is based upon some of the theories.

In terms of method:

There is no physical abuse, holding the child down and having strangers smother them while the adoptive mother watches and does nothing. There is no screaming obscenities at the child. There is no withholding water and food. No rubbing vomit and spit in the child's face.

There's no similarity whatsoever between this report and the attachment therapy the woman in this blog experienced. In fact, I was say this is the opposite. The report does mention the old school attachment therapy and the deaths.

[ursula]

So that answers your question, right? How the methods of treating a disorder have changed, and why?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

lol. Indeed it does. Thank you.

I should add a clarification to the post.

[tjstein.livejournal.com]

I am a foster parent and have never had any experience of the first description of attachment therapy. That sort of thing would never be tolerated by my state or my agency. We have pretty strict contracts about restraining children and/or withholding food.

I had heard the radio program before but we've not had a foster child yet diagnosed with attachment disorder so I don't have any experience with that type of therapy either.

It makes absolutely no sense at all why anyone would think that something like the 70s version would ever do anything than harm a child. Unforgivable, really.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Most people using the term "attachment therapy" today mean anything that is meant to create a healthy attachment between a parent and a child who's development of attachment has been disrupted. Attachment is about more than love, it's about trust. Children with attachment disorders have often learned from birth that adults can not be trusted. Holding may be used, but it's the sort of holding that we think about as a natural part of parenting. When a child rages -- on his or her own -- the child is held first to protect him or her from harm and then to comfort. Many parents use bottles, rocking and other nurturing techniques that seem very odd when used with a child often five or older. I know one mom with a highly traumatized kid who rocks her teenage daughter on a regular basis. Good attachment therapy involves the therapist acting as a facilitator between the parent and child. All of these parents would consider what they do attachment therapy and all would consider rage-reduction therapy no good at best and harmful at worst. I don't know of any one method that is used by everyone, because people find that different things work for different kids. A good read on the current status can be found at http://familyattachment.com/pages/whatworksparenting.pdf

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

A few decades ago, an acceptable and common treatment for depression and teen angst involved two ice picks and some scrambled brain. Kind of amazing, the things that can get a reputation as beneficial. :/

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

ursule gave me a link to a radio program to answer my questions (I'm sure you noticed after you commented). The radio program was careful to say the treatment you've described here is related to but not attachment therapy.

It's a mistake to call it attachment therapy when the treatment is the utter opposite from its roots. The old school attachment therapy involved inducing trauma to get the child to regress to a more helpless, panic-induced state.

It involved having strangers hold the child down, smothering him or her with pillows or blankets, while the parent stood by and did nothing. Withholding food and water. Rubbing the child's vomit and spit in his/her face.

By calling a completely different method -- if it is indeed that different and we not just being given a partial picture -- by the same name, it risks validating these other abusive methods.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Maybe it needs a different name, maybe not. I think within the community that deals with these issues, there's been a shift to attachment therapy as a generic term for a specialized goal, with a following discussion of methods and techniques. Maybe they should call it attachment disorder therapy instead, but I think it's human nature to shorten long phrases. I would note that most people doing some sort of therapy for attachment use the term holding therapy for the 70's version.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Holding kids down and smothering them with pillows, swearing at them, rubbing vomit in their faces is abuse. If you use the same term for something else? Well, don't come crying when people identify that as abuse.

To use a different example:

Friend A: "Hi! My couples therapist decided we should try wife beating as part of our therapy."

Friend B: "What?!"

Friend A: "No, no, no! Wife beating is warm and loving!"

Friend B: "Augh!"

Friend A: "No. I mean that I stroke her hair gently and say soothing things in her ear. We just call it wife beating."

Friend B: "Oh."

Friend A: "People just don't understand wife beating. They think it means that I beat my wife. Then they call me a jerk and throw rocks at me. Ow."

Friend B: "Um. Maybe you should call it something different?"

Friend A: "No. The rest of the world needs to be more openminded about wife beating. I feel so misunderstood...."

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Obviously, from this flippant example, you've made up your mind and you are comfortable with the viewpoint you've adopted. Personally, if the people who actually deal with this issue are comfortable with the language shift, I'm fine with it as well.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

After reading the detailed abuse in this woman's blog, hearing about the kids who died -- and then having those deaths and abuse confirmed by both sides on the (quite positive) radio report?

Yeah, you bet I've made up my mind. And quite frankly, I don't trust the "language shift." If it's so different, if the theory led to people's deaths, then why call it the same thing?

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Because parents who adopted kids more recently were unaware of the 70's techniques and when looking for a term to describe the numerous techniques such as Family Attachment Narrative Therapy,Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and Attachment-Focused Family Therapy, they naturally came up with.... attachment therapy.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

No last note and then I'm done with the round and round. Obviously, I find the "therapy" described by the blog to be disgusting. But I think focusing on it's name is a waste of your time if you're serious about stopping this sort of thing. It's been through numerous names. I've heard "holding therapy" most often, probably because it's highly descriptive of the basic techniques used. The focus should be on educating people about techniques that they should be aware of as dangerous and worthless, not on screening for a certain name.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No, according to the NPR radio report, it has the same name because it's based on the same theories.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I find the "therapy" described by the blog to be disgusting.

Good.

The focus should be on educating people about techniques that they should be aware of as dangerous and worthless, not on screening for a certain name.

I'm not going after a certain name. Read my post. But I'm telling you that using the same name for two different methods is a problem.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Responding again is probably excessive, but I hope you'll forgive me, as this is a very interesting and thorough report (linked to from that blog) on various attachment therapies:

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/pdf/taskforcepaper.pdf

This 2006 report is endorsed by the APA. It focuses on methods that are effective and those that are considered abusive by the American Psychological Association. The report states that all of the attachment therapies (including the abusive ones) are on the increase.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah. Here's something much more thorough. That NPR report isn't quite in line with what the American Psychological Association.

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/pdf/taskforcepaper.pdf

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with the paper. And I'll just add that I think part of why we went round and round is that I was talking about how the term is used by parents, while you were talking about technical terms used by therapists.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah. Since you're a professional in the field, here's the report from a task force on attachment therapy endorsed by the APA:

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/pdf/taskforcepaper.pdf

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Funny how a theory can sound good and then lead to... this.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I refer to it as the triumph over common sense.

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

As an individual with a Reactive Attachment Disorder diagnosis (RAD), I feel that indeed, the type of attachment threapy discussed above is harmful. There are attachmkent therapies that are not as dangerous or scarring available in some areas. As many states consider the issue of denying physical restraints in phsyciatric establishments, the more harmful type of attachment therapy should show a decrease in usage while mindfulness-based therapies for individuals with attachment disorders which do not blame the child while recognizing the responsibility of the child, as age appropriate, for their actions as well as the responsibility (not guilt) of the present and former caregivers.

The idea of RAD individuals growing up to be sociopaths is rediculous, and harmful to those with a RAD diagnosis. WHile some children diagnosed with RAD will act out violently, non-violent mindfulness based pratices in therapy help the vast majority of children.

TO say that either of the individuals mentioned have an attachment disorder is also misleading, as attachment disordered behavoirs must be observed between the ages of 4 and 8 in order to be diagnosed as such. a diagnosis may come later but only with data suggesting that the behaviors were present at that age. Trauma after the age of 4 results in a different diagnosis- PTSD.

I don't have time to check out your sites right nopw, but ping back and when I have Time I can give a more infromed response? this actually counts towards work hours to discuss this topic, so :D

[waywardradish.livejournal.com]

The wife-beating "example" you've come up with is a fabulous analogy.

Hi, I'm the writer behind A Search for Survivors (http://childtorture.wordpress.com/), I came across this entry by browsing through sites that had linked back to my own.

Firstly, thank you so much for helping to spread the word. I'm very impressed by the speed at which you were able to discern the inherent flaws in both the theories and practices of AT/P.

I've been subjected to countless semantic lectures by people (none of whom have undergone this "therapy" as I have) who claim that “attachment therapy” is interchangeable with “attachment parenting,” thus “attachment therapy” as is in fact “anti-attachment therapy,” or that “attachment therapy” is not the same as “reactive attachment therapy” or that “attachment therapy” is different from “attachment parenting,” or that “attachment parenting” is different from “reactive attachment parenting”...and so on ad nauseam.

There are certain forms of AT/P that are much more benign than what I've described here. (http://childtorture.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/darkness-visible/) However, even those involve coercive touching, isolation, forced age regression and dangerously pseudoscientific practices. (http://childtorture.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/the-disturbing-truth-about-attachment-parenting/)

The only viable reason for arguing against a name change is that this allows the proponents of AT/P's more conspicuously abusive practices a means of escaping legal and public scrutiny. That's why AT/P has cycled through so many names already (dyadic developmental therapy, rage reduction, visceral manipulation etc. etc.)--every time a kid dies, they rename it. Problem solved! Of course, this doesn't change the fact that "attachment therapy" as a whole is utter pseudoscience and needs to be debunked as such. People like Feinberg and Nancy Thomas actually count on sadly misinformed parents who espouse less overtly abusive forms of AT/P to lend credibility to the more "controversial" ones.

Apologies for the length of this comment, but I'm grateful for your insight--it's hard to come by, even among those who are anti-AT (in the old school hold-you-down, hit-you-in-the-abdomen, deny-you-oxygen sense). May I use your wife-beating analogy to illustrate the dangerous disavowal so many parents express towards AT/P on my site?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, go right ahead and use it. I'm not an expert on Attachment Therapy (a friend of mine with a brother with Asperger's linked to your blog to spread the word). I wouldn't want a link to this post as that would put me in the awkward position of answering questions about AT, but please borrow it as you would a cup of sugar, with my thanks for your efforts.

[waywardradish.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're already better informed on AT/P than many of its actual proponents to be found online, trust me.

Much obliged, neighbor.