The Science
Behind Reactive Attachment Disorder and Attachment Problems and the Treatments
Available
Attachment
therapies are usually assigned for children who have been maltreated,
especially those in foster care or adopted families and the risks and benefits
of treatments are scientifically undetermined.
Although Some harmful techniques do exist, there is absolutely no
reputable science backing up the treatment administered by these
professionals. Controversial therapy
techniques have ruined many years of my life, but more importantly have been
implicated in at least 6 child deaths, revocations of therapy licenses and
more. Clinical approaches such that work with both the parent and the child to
establish a sense of safety, stability, sensitivity, consistency, safety,
predictability and physical and emotional support have been proven to improve
the lives of many patients. By teaching
a parent or primary care provider to create an environment free from abuse, you
begin to allow the child to find a safety net.
No matter how many reports of healing, and lives changed you get from
these controversial therapies, I promise you they aren’t true. I would know!
I wrote 1 or 2 of them! Before I
was finally free of the self-blame, guilt and conviction that I was the broken
link in my family, I reviewed my treatment.
Because I had become docile, complacent, verbal and basically invisible
and had succumbed to the intense abuse, and I had given up on ever knowing a
world where the fear did not exist. My
mother Used attachment parenting and any advice that my therapist gave her she
tried, she just HAD to break me down and mold me into the child she had
wanted. Eventually that stopped working,
and she began to use more and more extreme measures. Because of other patient and their corresponding
parent reviews I believe that my mother started out on a quest to help me but
became so convinced that real medicine and therapy couldn’t help me that she
became selfishly engrossed in fixing me.
If you are looking to fix your child, you are already on a slippery
slope. We as parents are supposed to
raise or children up, grow with them, adapt our parenting to each of them, know
that life is different through each pair of eyes, but strive to see life in our
child’s way and help guide them safely into adulthood, so it was never supposed
to be about fixing a broken child, it was about healing a family.
Practices
that focus on creating a natural bond between the care giver(s) and the child
can only work if the imperfect parents are consistently striving to create a
calm, stable and predictable environment, where they are accepting and verbally
acknowledging their mistakes while actively demonstrating a willingness, and
action towards healing themselves to create that space. Treatment must be acceptance based, so often
sending a child outside of the home will result in a fear of “when they return,
will they be the same?” The truth is, if a child gets out of home treatment,
returns to the same environment, with the same toxic parenting a changed child
and regresses, news flash, that is the parent’s fault! It has been scientifically noted that
interventions on children work best when they are goal oriented (parents goals,
family goals, child goals) and behavior oriented, but not solely focused on the
“problem child” while neglecting to look at the needs of the entire family.
Many controversial
attachment therapies use a combination of clinical observations about the past
of the individual (child) and the current undesirable behaviors, such as:
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Signs of attachment disorder before
the age of 5
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Lack of Conscience
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Lack of Trust in Adults
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Seeks Control
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Resists Authority
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Engages in Power Struggles
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Highly Manipulative
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Clinical Observation before the age of
5
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Mal-Treatment
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Loss
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Separation
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Child Care Changes
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Colic
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Adoption
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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Ear infections
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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When angry acts with aggression
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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RAD
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The problem
becomes the fact that any combination of these factors can label you Reactive
Attachment Disorder, when in fact most children between 1 and 3 display these
signs regardless of a history of abuse or not!
This leads to many children being diagnosed with a very rare disorder,
purely because they were children with a less than happy past. This way of thinking leads parents and some
mental health practitioners to believe the “my way is the only way” mindset that
can creep in. Trust and acceptance are
impossible if the parents already believe that their child is indeed a
monster. By basing “treatment” on the
past actions of past parents or parental figures and not focusing on the
current parents, the blame is diverted to past care givers and for actions of
the child in the current situation. It
is important to note that often these children are in acute stress due to a
system of care that often fails its charges, and consistently changing
circumstances. When good behavior is
observed outside of the home, it is OFTEN viewed not as an achievement for the
child, but instead as a complex manipulation on the part of the child. This allows the care giver a lack of
accountability for the current situation, but also an excuse for continued
abuses that are thinly veiled as attempts at therapeutic treatment. When parenting becomes a battle that you must
win at the cost of your child’s safety, sanity and in some cases life, as a
parent you MUST contemplate if you are even remotely equipped to be a parent at
all.
I am going
to recount a few of my memories here, but as a fair warning they aren’t
pleasant and may even verge into disturbing:
- Being tickled so painfully that I was
scratching and biting to get free, I didn’t care if I hurt my mother because
all I knew was the desire to get away.
- “Deep tissue” massages where my
mother would press on my pressure points with no warning and laugh when I
lashed out in anger and pain.
- Praying my mother would die, so that
the abuse would finally end. Feeling
guilty for praying for freedom.
- I remember the wooden spoon breaking
on my butt (I was 6 or 7)
- Being swaddled in a queen-sized sheet
while an adult (usually my mother) laid on top of me, usually laughing at me
and when I couldn’t breathe telling me I was fine, crying, screaming and
finally letting my brain wander to just get it over with ( between the ages of
10 and 12)
- The panic of never knowing if she was
folding laundry or preparing for a “holding time” but either way I wasn’t
sticking around to find out.
- I remember what it is like to live
every single day afraid, that hasn’t gone away yet.
- I remember the shame, and that hasn’t
gone away either.
A basic
summery of Controversial Attachment theory, used by attachment therapist is
this: babies who experienced trauma also experience rage at a biological
level. Because of this, they must purge
the rage to be able to express any healthy emotions, so coercive therapies are
used to induce an anger reaction; however, there is no proof that these
therapies work. My mother and many other
parents are convinced that these therapies are the only way to prevent their
child(ren) from becoming psychopaths and engaging in criminal behavior, but
science has proven that creating a rage ventilation actually messes up the
child’s brain chemistry which most often leads to poor adaptation to social
situations and even the workforce.
Reactive
Attachment disorder may be confused with these other disorders:
- Conduct
disorder
- Oppositional
defiance disorder
- Anxiety
disorders
- PTSD
- Social
Phobia Disorder
- Autism
Spectrum Disorder
- Childhood
Schizophrenia
- Other
genetic syndromes
Most maltreated, foster and adopted children DO NOT have Reactive Attachment Disorder,
in fact many of these children cope and adjust very well when presented with an
imperfect but loving, stable abuse free environment. Because so many of the controversial
therapies are so publicly advertised, it is hard to figure out which direction
to take. As a tired, drained and
desperate parent it may feel as though these parents and ex patients are
speaking right to you! “They cured me, it was a long road, but the intensive
therapy and healthy family finally helped me realize that I was indeed the
issue all along” -A Controversial Therapy Ex-RAD Kiddo
“I sent my
kid away, and it was the hardest thing I had ever done, I got my 16 year old
back and I really thought it had worked, but a few months later her attitude
started back up, and I just couldn’t understand why she felt the need to
control me. I am HER parent AFTER
ALL! So, I sent her away to a new
institution, out of state and when she came back at 18 years old it was like a
dream come true! She was so obedient,
and I was happy to have her in my home.” -Some Mom who believes attitude is the
same as RAD.
This may
sound promising but, I was that kid. I
said that and I was so abused I thought it was normal that as an 18-year-old
adult my MOTHER was telling me that I had the brain of a 14-year-old and she
was going to file for guardianship over me.
I thought all parents were like this, but then I saw people I used to
know and met new people who reminded me that I was an adult and that this was
indeed NOT normal. That most adults
didn’t have to ask to use the bathroom or get a snack. That most adults didn’t expect to be
backhanded for a snarky comment. I
finally broke free when I was 19 years old.
I had 19 years of my life stolen, by a constant battle of wills, mine
was to survive and hers was to control.
And somehow, I always believed I was the bad 1.
Just a
further note that the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in
2003 issued a statement that said in summary that Controversial Attachment
therapies including but not limited to holding therapy are too dangerous to be
used by healthcare practitioners as they can cause lasting physical and
psychological harm to the patient, and in the fight for autonomy the patient
may hurt the practitioner, so therefore it should not even be attempted by
parents as it is far too dangerous.
Maybe you
can think that the professionals are wrong because you and your child had an
experience, but I will ask you this: How
long will it take for you to get fed up and feel manipulated by your
child? And will you just send them away
again? Did you even try a conventional
therapy, change your own actions, or work towards mutual goals? Or is all of that pointless, because you are
perfect and your shit doesn’t stink, just your kids?
