Day 606. Survivors found: 9
There are countless Internet sinkholes where one can go to insult child torture survivors and say that we have our “heads in our asses,” “a sad excuse for a life,” and that we are like the “KuKluxKlan.” This, being a site dedicated to stopping child torture (in case one did not notice), is not one of them.
“Parents” who practice attachment therapy and leave comments rife with insults wrapped in the thinnest of veils, making fun of the fact that we number so few, saying that we want to “euthanize” abused children when we ourselves have survived lethal child abuse are just too moronic to address with anything other than laughter.
Seriously though, it is extremely sad that grown adults who purport to be loving, selfless parents feel so compelled to assert their ostensible superiority by attacking child abuse survivors.
As for our supporters and fellow anti-torture advocates trying to inform some parent that a certain child therapist has a checkered background, or questioning parents who try to give away an 8-year old child online does not count as “attacking,” sorry.
The fact that some RAD proponents feel the need to respond to such questioning with venom provides further insight into the tragic mentality of this fringe therapy cult.
Those who actually read our survivors’ site will know that some of our most supportive allies are in fact former Attachment Therapy proponents who have managed to extricate themselves and their children from it. These parents have helped provide crucial insight into the group mentality of AT; it’s a cult, make no mistake about it.
If the trolls bothered to read as well, they would see our frequent disclaimers about how we do not judge parents who get caught up in this cult, as many of them are victimized to a certain extent as well.
This does not mean that we will indulge their insults and sanctimonious hyperbole.
Oh, and the silly straw man arguments about how we are against all therapies even when many of our allies are actual therapists themselves, or that we oppose safe, emergency restraint measures just further highlight these AT proponents’ trollish unwillingness to read. Their incredible, yet predictable demands – wholly based upon these sanctimonious fallacies – that those who’ve survived child abuse and actively oppose it are somehow required to solve the myriad problems of their would-be abusers, shed more light on the abuse culture these troubled parents are caught up in.
Abuse culture is comprised far more of such entitlement and derailing than it is about who makes the cut as a “good parent” versus a “bad” one.
Of course perfectly “nice, normal” people can propagate lethal quackery! That’s what makes this epidemic so scary.
On a lighter and related (though not entirely analogous) note, this video should prove useful:
Comments 7
It’s interesting to look at AT proponents’ groups in terms of their cult-like characteristics. (In fact, Monica Pignotti and I discussed some aspect of this as part of our presentation to the International Cultic Studies Association summer before last.) AT proponents’ groups establish a parallel to orthodox professional groups, rather as religious cults are set up as parallels to conventional religious organizations. AT proponents’ groups have developed their own training programs and professional certifications (like the “registered attachment therapist” designation used by ATTACh). These groups do not cooperate with conventional professional groups, but criticize and reject them, stating that conventional treatment does not help, but actually exacerbates “attachment disorders”. They provide their own alternative definitions and symptom lists for mental health disorders, again paralleling the actions of conventional groups.
Looking at the organizations alone, however, it’s hard to say that they are entirely cult-like. They pay lip service to certain conventional considerations– for example, declaring that “attachment disorder” as they have defined it will be found in the next DSM. They have sought and in some cases managed to achieve approval of continuing education units for their classes, from the National Association of Social Workers and the American Psychological Association among others. Thus, they are prepared to drop the cult barriers when working with conventional organizations would be to their advantage. While cult-like in some ways, the AT organizations such as ATTACh may be more accurately considered as concentrating on the bottom line and following business practices without regard to cult beliefs. For example, following Candace Newmaker’s death, ATTACh hired a PR firm to improve their image– surely not the act of organizational leaders devoted to upholding a belief system under attack.
Individual AT parents and practitioners appear to have more cult-like habits of thought. Some of their responses resemble those in the old study “When Prophecy Fails”, in which members of an end-of-the-world group redoubled their beliefs when the end did not come as predicted. For example,following the news of Candace Newmaker’s death, AT proponents on the Internet declared that the child had deliberately died in order to cause trouble for the therapists, accepting this irrational explanation rather than considering the simpler possibility that the practices and practitioners were wrong. AT-convinced individuals also stress a gnostic approach, claiming that no one can address any of these issues unless they have adopted a child, and most particularly a child with serious emotional disturbance. This experience gives knowledge which can be achieved in no other way, so adoptive parents are initiates into a mystery which no degree of formal study can begin to disclose. Frightening behaviors by adopted children are apparently thought to provide the transformational experiences that mark the initiation of the individual; descriptions of these emphasize terror associated with violence, unbridled sexuality, and attempts to bring the punishments of “the authorities” down on the adoptive parents.
Other cult-like characteristics include the declaration that persons outside the group (including grandparents, siblings,and teachers) do not know the truth and are led by ignorance to criticize AT-convinced individuals, who in turn must distance themselves from their usual social network and depend entirely on AT-oriented groups and individuals for social support. In cult-like fashion, AT-oriented persons have their own esoteric vocabulary, referring always to RAD rather than Reactive Attachment Disorder, or using the term AD (“Attachment Disorder”) to reify the list of symptoms they regard as due to problems of attachment. Contrary to any evidence known to conventional science, they assert that emotional attachment occurs before birth, and that attachment-disordered children will grow up to be serial killers. These claims resemble the unsubstantiated “special knowledge” of many cults, and like that “special knowledge” serve to up the emotional ante by suggesting that only cult members will be able to escape the personal threats implied by the claims.
As seems to be the case for many cults, AT beliefs and practices may provide some temporary escape from anxiety for some parents and practitioners. Whether this is the case for the leaders of AT organizations, or whether these people are simply snake oil merchants benefiting from the beliefs of the rank-and-file– these are questions we can’t presently answer.
Posted 26 Oct 2009 at 06:09 ¶My opinions:
I suspect that if AT proponents — therapists, adoptive parents, and therapeutic foster parents — weren’t dependent on public funds (such as adoption subsidies) and insurance reimbursements, the entire practice would be much happier operating underground. But they walk the difficult line of trying to appear legitimate while torturing children.
Attachment Therapists have found acceptance from decades of lecturing to judges and child welfare workers about their multitude of bogus beliefs, with false assurances about the effectiveness of their “therapy,” using a jargon that conceals their true methods, e.g. “Holding Therapy is gentle and nurturing.”
AT/P parents approach police, teachers, and neighbors early on. Using the gnostic arguments Dr. Mercer describes above, they attempt to “inoculate” themselves from charges of child abuse. The parents are instructed to say things like, “You may hear some screaming or yelling coming from my home. You should know that we have adopted a severely disturbed child. This child may tell you that he is being abused, but these children typically make false accusations. They may claim they haven’t eaten in days, but that’s just the crazy lying they do. You can speak with the child’s therapist to confirm all I’ve said.” Thus, children caught up in AT/P may have no where to turn for help. This is one of the practical reason for maintaining isolation of the family in this “therapy cult.”
And lest children think about going for help, they may have it pounded into them that “no one will believe you.”
Other signs of a cult that we see in AT/P:
No tolerance of criticism or questioning their methods or beliefs. Proponents appear to have an unreasonable fear and loathing of those who aren’t supportive of AT/P. They demonize critics, as well as children. A habit, perhaps.
There are reports of therapists haranguing parents who want to take their child out of therapy, or intimidating concerned grandparents.
Adoptive mothers use parent support groups for validation of harsh AT parenting. Implementing the highly authoritarian parenting methods is necessarily a 24/7 obsession. The role of the adoptive father (and relatives) may be limited to only supporting and believing the mother. (Divorce appears to be not uncommon.)
It appears that a number of parents who have been charged with criminal abuse or homicide tried to protect their AT/P therapist from sharing the blame.
AT/P has been associated with a dubious underground trafficking in children (and their adoption subsidy checks). Some parents have mentioned online, private discussion groups for such private placement dealings.
Some families (“mega families”) seem to make a business out of boarding, for months or years, unwanted children who have already been subjected to AT/P — and the parents want the child to continue to with the harsh parenting.
AT/P families may pass off children to others for a variety of reasons: including wanting to get rid of a child permanently, to “keep the child off balance” (a therapeutic notion), and in one case, as punishment for failure to do 500 push-ups. In another case of an AT/P mega family, authorities had a great deal of difficulty tracking down the origins of one girl who had been handed around.
By the way, I recently read an AT/P mom’s blog, where she acknowledged that some AT/P is abusive, but not the type she was using, of course. Yet she categorically (and it seemed defensively) denounced all survivors writing online as mentally disturbed.
Posted 26 Oct 2009 at 15:28 ¶I am very taken by the previous two posts and continue to think on the ideas contained in them. Much food for thought there.
One place that some AT/P parents may board their children out to are Independent Fundamentalist Baptists who run group homes and schools. They too are often said to be cult like, but appear to have a bottom line mentality also. If the parents continue to pay, the IFB will continue to board/”teach” and find a reason why the child needs to continue in such a living situation. Like AT/P the IFB seems to believe in some forms of food deprivation etc., harsh control techniques (adults/parents are always right), and the idea that young children are “evil” in some way and prone to lying and making false allegations of abuse. And yes, I would underscore the idea of the father’s role often seeming to be one of just standing by and supporting the mother. That is an odd phenomenon in itself and probably worthy of some further examination.
Dr. Mercer and Linda both of your posts here have been very interesting and thought provoking. Thank you both for continuing the fight.
Posted 26 Oct 2009 at 20:20 ¶Eastern Sky, you might be interested in this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-myths/200910/child-abuse-why-do-they-do-it ,
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 08:59 ¶where I summarized some ideas about adult motivations that may be related to systematic abusive treatment.
Dr. Mercer,
Thank you very much for the reference to your article. I read it and found it interesting. I heard someone speak a few weeks ago about how PTSD causes a person’s brain to “go hyper” in certain areas (normally unnecessary), overcompensate for the fear and anxiety that this causes, and then not be able to filter and process what is real and what isn’t. The speaker gave a much better description and it made a lot of sense to me. I can see how many AT parents may have been traumatized in their own lives at some time and are trying unsuccessfully to overcome that trauma and move forward in a certain way. It could explain why so much about AT can seem so “right” to them, but wrong to most everyone else.
The other thing that I see here is how individuals with certain personality disorders could be drawn to AT/P, e.g. a parent with borderline personality disorder could see adoption and a subsequent RAD diagnosis in a child as something of an insurance policy against being left, abandoned, or ignored. Likewise a parent with a histrionic personality disorder could indulge themselves in the drama and “crisis” aspects of having an adopted child diagnosed with RAD. Similarly, a narcissistic parent could use a RAD diagnosis in an adopted child as a way to display a certain level of personal arrogance (“It’s all about me, actually!”) and a “nobody else knows the reality of all of this, but I do” attitude, as many of these “parents” and “therapists” seem to do.
The examples could go on and on and I’m actually not all that taken with the DSM and mental health diagnoses, but I think all of this really points to the notion of the parents not being mentally sound and healthy in the first place. That mental unhealthiness seems to play into their decision to adopt in the first place and continues on in the choices they make regarding child rearing methods. I get a sense that the people who do home studies for adoptions simply do not delve deeply enough into the prospective parents’ personal relationships and mental health situations, reasons for wanting to adopt, or the expectations of what being a parent is all about. I don’t know that they ever ask friends and family for private or confidential opinions regarding a couple’s ability to be good adoptive or foster parents. I think that one of the ways to attack the problem of AT/P would be for adoption agencies to do much more thorough investigations of would be adoptive parents. Of course if the agency personnel, themselves, believe in AT/P there is no hope there!
Posted 29 Oct 2009 at 09:06 ¶Eastern Sky and everyone else:
I thought you might be very interested in some of the presentations and audio podcasts from here:
Audio Presentations from the National Educational Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder
Many of the speakers clarify the science and may clear away some misconceptions.
Andrew Chanen has written about Borderline Personality Disorder in young people.
Many of the presentations have 40-50 slides.
Maybe the reason social workers don’t do the things in Eastern Sky’s last paragraph, is that they are too much like therapy and too little like advocacy?
Appreciate the heads up on PTSD too.
Posted 29 Oct 2009 at 23:27 ¶Face down restraint; food deprivation, and isolation; maybe these two members of Congress can help with the AT/P issue as well as the schools issue?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/08/miller.mcmorrisrodgers.childabuse.legislation/
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 08:39 ¶Post a Comment