Attachment therapy

This article is about an alternative form of behavioral intervention. For commonly accepted therapies based on John Bowlby's attachment theory, see Attachment-based therapy (children).

Attachment therapy (also called "the Evergreen model", "holding time", "rage-reduction", "compression therapy", "rebirthing", "corrective attachment therapy", and "coercive restraint therapy"[1]) is a pseudoscientific child mental health intervention intended to treat attachment disorders.[1] It is found primarily in the United States, and much of it is centered in about a dozen clinics in Evergreen, Colorado, where Foster Cline, one of the founders, established his clinic in the 1970s.[2]

The practice has resulted in adverse outcomes for children, including at least six documented child fatalities.[3] Since the 1990s, there have been a number of prosecutions for deaths or serious maltreatment of children at the hands of "attachment therapists" or parents following their instructions. Two of the most well-known cases are those of Candace Newmaker in 2000 and the Gravelles in 2003. Following the associated publicity, some advocates of attachment therapy began to alter views and practices to be less potentially dangerous to children. This change may have been hastened by the publication of a Task Force Report on the subject in January 2006, commissioned by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) which was largely critical of attachment therapy.[4] In April 2007, ATTACH, an organization originally set up by attachment therapists, formally adopted a White Paper stating its unequivocal opposition to the use of coercive practices in therapy and parenting, promoting instead newer techniques of attunement, sensitivity and regulation.[5]

Attachment therapy is primarily based on Robert Zaslow's rage-reduction therapy from the 1960s and 1970s and on psychoanalytic theories about suppressed rage, catharsis, regression, breaking down of resistance and defence mechanisms. Zaslow, Tinbergen, Martha Welch and other early proponents used it as a treatment for autism, based on the now discredited belief that autism was the result of failures in the attachment relationship with the mother. This form of treatment differs significantly from evidence-based attachment-based therapies, talking psychotherapies such as attachment-based psychotherapy and relational psychoanalysis.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference tfr83 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Dozier M and Rutter M (2008). "Challenges to the Development of Attachment Relationships Faced by Young Children in Foster and Adoptive Care". In Cassidy J and Shaver PR. Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research and Clinical Applications (2nd ed.). New York, London: Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-60623-028-2
  3. ^ Berlin LJ, et al. (2005), "Preface", in Berlin LJ, Ziv Y, Amaya-Jackson L, Greenberg MT (eds.), Enhancing Early Attachments: Theory, Research, Intervention and Policy, Duke series in child development and public policy, Guilford Press, pp. xvii, ISBN 978-1-59385-470-6
  4. ^ Chaffin, Hanson & Saunders 2006c
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference attach07 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).