Product Description

Attachment is the deep and enduring connection established between a child and caregiver in the first few years of life. It profoundly influences every component of the human condition: mind, body, emotions, relationships, and values.

Attachment, Trauma, and Healing examines the causes of attachment disorder, and provides in-depth discussion on effective solutions--including attachment-focused assessment and diagnosis, specialized training and education for caregivers, the controversial "in arms" treatment for children and caregivers, and early intervention and prevention programs for high-risk families.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106154 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 315 pages

Customer Reviews

Attachments?
Excellent book on attachments and trauma. I am not finished yet, but I have already found this book to be very helpful and provide key insights into understanding the children that I am counseling with currently.

Child Abuse
I urge extreme caution with the authors' unvalidated and abusive methods. Their "Holding Nurturing Process" [HNP] is just another name for "Attachment (Holding)Therapy" -- a practice that is denounced by APSAC and the American Psychological Association's Division on Child Maltreatment.

The authors embrace the old and discredited hypothesis of "catharsis," i.e. that people can rid themselves of their anger by simply being angry. It doesn't work that way (it actually makes people practiced at acting out their anger). The authors therefore attempt to "upregulate" children they hold in their laps so that they can experience catharis of repressed infantile anger. They write:

"The child's level of tension increases while
confronting issues in the context of the HNP.
This tension is discharged via physical and
emotional release (sobbing, screaming, kicking)." -- pp. 133-134

Another practice these professional organizations disapprove of is forced age regression, which Levy and Orlans promote:

"The regressive experience enables the child
to simulate that original mother-infant attachment.
We often use baby bottles and blankets during the
attachment exercises to enhance authenticity." -- p. 191

A major dynamic in treatment is helping the child
regress to the period that produced the pathology. -- p. 249

This sort of "therapy" has been going on for decades. Why, you wonder? Well, as one Attachment Therapist stated candidly at a national conference of his peers, "Some parents want to beat up on their kids and think it looks better if a therapist does it."

This is NOT family therapy, but putting all the responsibility for family harmony on the child. The child is even threatened with abandonment if he doesn't "work on his life" (display unquestioning compliance) to the liking of the parents and therapists.

Shame on the Child Welfare League for publishing this horrific quackery and not demanding research that demonstrates safety and benefit to children.

Ideas presented used immediately
With the info presented, I was able to immediately put into action some of the ideas. And they worked! I feel more confident parenting and isn't that the goal of the book?