The Truth About Attachment Disorders

 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:

	Signs of attachment disorder before the age of 5	Lack of Conscience	Lack of Trust in Adults	Seeks Control	Resists Authority	Engages in Power Struggles	Highly Manipulative
Clinical Observation before the age of 5	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Mal-Treatment	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Loss	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Separation	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Child Care Changes	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Colic	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Adoption	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
Ear infections	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD
When angry acts with aggression	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD	RAD

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:

1.   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.
2.    “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.
3.     Praying my mother would die, so that the abuse would finally end.  Feeling guilty for praying for freedom.
4.     I remember the wooden spoon breaking on my butt (I was 6 or 7)
5.       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)
6.       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.
7.      I remember what it is like to live every single day afraid, that hasn’t gone away yet.
8.      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?