“God used intrusive techniques himself.”
- Foster Cline, Conscienceless Acts (1995)
I’m extremely wary of politicizing attachment therapy.
I know it’s more productive to focus on the abusive practice itself rather than the filters through which it can be perceived. Concentrating on the former circumvents the chances of turning this issue of mass-sanctioned child torture–so important and fragile in its lack of exposure–into just another partisan screaming match.
I debated long and hard about this post, before coming to the conclusion that I can’t censor myself to such a degree, and I certainly can’t deny this truth:
Religious fundamentalism stands as a powerful, driving force behind this child torture.
Of course, AT takes root in secular communities as well, in different countries around the world (I’ll make a definitive post on this global epidemic later). AT’s origins are arguably secular; “holding therapy,” the grand precursor to all of AT’s polysyllabic knockoffs, was first developed as a “cure” for autism. It has continued to be promoted as treatment for autistic children to this day, particularly in Germany.
There exists a dominionist “parallel economy,” in which AT has flourished, gaining wide exposure and credibility. This economy proposes “alternative medicines and spiritual healing” against legitimate, scientific medical practices. I’d like to point out that its target demographic is entirely bipartisan: bleeding-heart, New Age nitwits rubbing shoulders with rod-wielding, evangelical whackos. In a nutshell, these are the people who like to dismiss childhood vaccinations against diseases as “poison.”
Stupidity is almost endearing in its transcendence–it’s an entirely equal opportunity affliction that knows no bounds, recognizes neither religious nor political party affiliations.
I recently contacted an M.D. who has worked extensively in advocating children’s medical rights, seeking some of his knowledge and advice. He replied that he was primarily concerned for “who have suffered and died when denied medical care in favor of spiritual ‘healing’ attempts,” that he “didn’t have much time for AT.”
Now, I do not claim any expertise in this aside from my own copious firsthand experience (whatever that’s worth). But I’d been researching AT in-depth for a few weeks already, enough to be pretty certain that it fell within this M.D.’s immediate sphere of knowledge, if not his interest.
There’s no question that AT qualifies as an “alternative (e.g. unvalidated, substandard, unethical) therapy.” Its connections to dominionists are less obvious, but they still run deep and manifold. AT has enjoyed considerable acceptance among religious sects who embrace severe, Biblical disciplinary methods and believe that children must be forced to behave with grateful and unquestioning obedience, or else they will never be able to properly submit to a deity.
The bogus “attachment disorder” is considered “satanic” by these groups, and children who are diagnosed with it are demonized. One mother, who killed her 25-pound adopted son from Russia, claimed in her defense that she was fearful of the boy because he came from an “atheist country.”
The most publicized cases of religiously motivated abuse are likely the ones directly attributed to Michael and Debi Pearl, a Christian couple who advocate the use of plumbing supply lines and other devices to “chasten” children. Through their website and several books, the Pearls recommend beating infants–some as young as eight months old–with a PVC pipe.
The sins that warrant such punishment? Playing with one’s food, sucking one’s thumb, picking one’s nose and waking up in the middle of the night… Keep in mind that we are dealing with infants here.
The “childrearing” methods of the Pearls are indistinguishable from AT; 4-year old Sean Haddock was killed by his adoptive mother, who wrapped him so tightly in blankets that he suffocated to death.
(Sources: New Observer: Dead child’s mom sought discipline tips
Talk To Action: Death by ‘chastening rod’”)
(Fun fact of the day: the term “awesome” comes from the Old Testament, which asserts that adopted and foster children should fear their mother as the “awesome” Jehovah is feared!)
The Pearls’ modus operandi (which again is by no means exceptional within the dominionist community, but for purposes of identification please bear with me) is so egregious, it galvanized other Christian parents into an anti-violence “Stop the Rod” movement: http://www.stoptherod.net/
Oh, and then there’s the matter of neopentecostal “exorcisms,” which are estimated to cause at least fifteen deaths per year in the US alone. The death of 8-year old Terrance Cottrell, Jr., an autistic child who was murdered by his church elder, is testament to the fact that although the ends of “exorcism-related” abuse may differ from AT (satanic dispelling versus enforced bonding), it is impossible to differentiate from the means.
Going back to that MD–there is, of course, no doubt that withholding proper medical care from a child results in great pain and suffering, but AT/P’s methods have immediate, lethal consequences. All of its methods–starvation, physical assault, asphyxiation, dehydration, isolation–exacerbate any existing health problems while creating new and future ones…assuming the child manages to survive this “treatment” in the first place. On top of having to endure extreme physical and psychological torture, the child’s medical needs will immediately be dismissed as “manipulative and attention-getting behavior.” It just adds insult to injury, really.
I believe that “attachment therapy” (and its legion incarnations) is THE MOST vile of form of quackery in existence. That MD’s reaction just demonstrates that even the most experienced, esteemed “experts” may have difficulty wrapping their mighty, shining brains around this horror that lies beyond the bounds of most imaginations.
And miles to go before I sleep.
March 26, 2008 at 1:43 am
KEEP posting, I hope more hear what you are saying… So few people are speaking out against AT. Keep it up…
April 1, 2008 at 7:37 am
Well put that ’stupidity is almost endearing…it’s equal opportunity affliction’. As Forrest Gump says: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Do doctors have a responsibility to treat harms that were/are caused by attachment therapy, or can they refuse because it’s an alternative treatment? That may well have been a blind spot on the part of this MD: to not see that it is the same mechanism and deals with very much the same mindset.
I guess intelligence in this matter would be not letting our emotions overtake us so that we can’t take action when we should, and judging this against the evidence and our overall morality (both common-sense/consensus and independent).
On Russia and atheism: the country is now free-market, and there at least in theory is freedom of religion. In 1994, three years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Renee Polreis may not have been aware of this. even under Communism (1917 – 1991), people practised their religion unofficially. Many Russians are Eastern Orthodox Christian, and it is a melting pot as much as the United States is. Having said that, it may be that Russians worship the almigty rouble or the US dollar: a materialism that is not dialectic!
On spanking: the Wikipedia article has facts, arguments and counter-arguments.
There are a few lines on the Judeo-Christian tradition, and much more on the sociological reasons. James Dobson is more or less a supporter of attachment therapy and disorder. The Wikipedia article states that spanking has similar effects to a mild stimulant like Ritalin.
If you and your readers would like more insight and context on religious fundamentalism and psychology/psychiatry, I can recommend three good sites that I find informative. The first is Denise Bobgan’s Psychoheresy, the second is Biblical Discernment Ministries – which has a ZIP pack on all sorts of parenting/pastoring exposes – and the third is Christian Discernment by “Debbie” which focuses on classical psychoanalysis and its popular cultural variants: everything from Freud to Scott Peck to Judy Mercer (this last is a popular speaker). I especially recommend the first and the third.
There is a woman who has had an adult child since she was three (this was over twenty years ago) and she says that RAD is a ’spiritual problem’ over and above her concession that it is a ‘mental illness’. I think it is an understandable if extreme reaction to an intolerable reality that could kill the person if faced.
What a great and challenging post for Easter Sunday. As for the origins of attachment therapy being ‘arguably secular’ … this could have something to do with the Instant Obedience thing in Central Europe.
April 22, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Interesting discussion – I was put on to this by a friend. I’ve lived in Europe and now live in New Zealand – I haven’t come across Attachment therapy but I have worked as a caregiver in a daycare center for children with “intellectual disabilities” for two years here in NZ, including several kids with severe autism.
While out policy was strictly non-violent – in fact I was fired from my job without notice after another colleague claimed he had seen me hit a teenage client (but let’s not go there…) – it was not always adhered to, and one of the young people I was in charge of was, well, I suppose you could say demonised, because of behaviour – being unable to speak or communicate in any meaningful way apart from a small set of gestures which it was often up to the caregiver to interpret correctly or incorrectly, the young person had a tendency to latch out and hit people when in a situation that displeased or upset the child. Many of my colleagues were scared and unwilling to work with this client (though the level of violence one got exposed to was, occasionally unpleasant but never dangerous) – and the young person often got scolded for this behaviour, and verbally abused, and excluded from activities, despite the fact that this was officially against the place’s policies to do so.
Besides, a few of our clients were on a diet of drugs that was designed to “control their behaviour” but must in essence have put them into a permanent state of doped stupor. I was wondering if this sort of chemical shackling has been a topic in this discussion, and what your thoughts are on that?
In my experience, even our most “difficult” young people (and I have worked with some that many colleagues were not comfortable working with) reacted well to being paid attention, and to the attempt to understand their wishes and respect them. I also happen to think that the supposed inability of people with autism to develop personal attachment is a myth – they just express it differently from “normal” people.
I think it all comes down to our society not being able to provide the space, and enough people with enough time, to allow these young people to develop in their own way and fashion. I am not sure what can be done about that – but demonising them decidedly does not help – not least because it ends up preventing those people who would be willing and able to make the effort, to give them proper support and understanding, as happened more than once in my job. :(