The Infinite Mind: Attachment
The Infinite Mind: Attachment
Week of January 2, 2002
It's human to connect. Without the opportunity for consistent relationships early in life, though, development founders. This show explores attachment disorder and attachment problems that affect children who have been abused and neglected. Guests include psychiatrist Dr. Charles Zeanah, clinical psychologist Robert Karen, Thais Tepper, the founder of the Network for the Post-Institutionalized Child, and Joyce Peters, the adoptive mother of a child with attachment disorder.
Host Dr. Fred Goodwin begins the show by noting that attachment disorder is a relatively new term that was absent from psychiatric textbooks as little as five years ago. Since then, an increase in adoptions from Eastern Europe, Russia and China and a new appreciation for the importance of environment in shaping children have brought attachment problems to the fore. Dr. Goodwin notes that the term attachment disorder is reserved for children who are so damaged by abuse and neglect they don't bond with caretakers and wreak havoc on everyone around them. Many of them, Dr. Goodwin points out, make remarkable recoveries.
Joyce Peters then discusses her daughter, Elizabeth, who was abandoned by her birth mother at the age of four. After that, Elizabeth was moved from 10 foster homes until, at the age of 8½, she was adopted by Peters. Elizabeth had tantrums, stole, lied, played with fire and rebuffed contact with Peters. Eventually, a doctor diagnosed Elizabeth with attachment disorder. She has since received therapy. Peters recounts her daughter's progress and says, since Elizabeth can now talk about her traumatic past, says she's confident Elizabeth will make it. You can e-mail Joyce Peters at joy2522@aol.com.
Next, Dr. Goodwin talks with Thais Tepper, director of the Parent Network for the Post-Institutionalized Child. Tepper talks about her son, now 11, whom she adopted from Romania. When she met him, he had little muscle control, made no sound and was unable to make eye contact. Tepper says that she was deceived by the adoption agency about the condition of her child. Since adopting, she has learned that children in Romania were most often referred to by bed number, rather than by name. It took almost three years before he responded to her; much of that time Tepper spent looking for a therapist who knew about attachment disorder. Because of that isolating experience, Tepper founded the Parent Network for the Post-Institutionalized Child, which now has some 8,000 members.
The problems she hears about most frequently are learning disabilities and behavior problems, including violence. Tepper talks about her frustration over the lack of resources available for parents of children with attachment problems. She often hears from parents whose children with attachment problems end up having run-ins with the juvenile justice system. Her recommendation is that parents who detect attachment problems seek care immediately. To contact Thais Tepper and the Parent Network for the Post-Institutionalized Child, you can call (724) 222-1766, e-mail them at PNPIC@aol.com or check out their website, http://www.pnpic.org.
Dr. Goodwin is then joined by Drs. Robert Karen and Charles Zeanah. Dr. Zeanah is professor of psychiatry and neurology at Tulane University Medical School in New Orleans. Dr. Karen is a practicing psychologist and author of Becoming Attached: Our First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love and The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection. Dr. Karen says we all form attachments, except in the most extreme cases, and those attachments shape how we'll relate to others later in life. Dr. Zeanah says the quality of early attachments is a good predictor of later social adaptation. Between seven and nine months of age, babies begin to focus on a small number of caregivers and become wary of strangers. If infants haven't been able to make an attachment at that age, they become, by definition, officially attachment disordered. However, says Zeanah, many more people are affected by attachment problems, having attached to caregivers in problematic ways.
Dr. Karen says attachment problems were first noted in institutionalized children in the 1930s. Dr. Zeanah notes that children with attachment disorder may be extremely emotionally withdrawn or indiscriminately social. He says that, in institutions, this can result from the lack of continuity with a single caregiver. One intervention Zeanah says has been successful involves having mothers confront attachment issues from their own childhood. Dr. Karen notes that parenting instruction can improve attachments between caretaker and child. Dr. Zeanah notes that attachment problems often overlap with other diagnoses, including autism, conduct problems, and depression and that insecure attachment has been clearly linked to social problems later in life. Karen concludes the interview by saying that we all suffer to some degree from attachment wounds and that we're all struggling in some way to correct them. You can reach Dr. Karen by e-mail at rbkx2@aol.com. To reach Charles Zeanah, write to him at the Department of Psychiatry, 1440 Canal Street, Tidewater Building, Tulane University Health Science Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112 or check out his website, www.tulane.edu.
Next, The Infinite Mind's Sharon Lerner reports on holding therapy, a controversial technique for addressing attachment problems in children. We meet Mary Kay Bernardo, who uses holding therapy with her adopted son, Nolan. This therapy involves Bernardo sometimes holding 11-year-old Nolan down as a way of showing him she is in control. Proponents say the technique releases pent up anger in troubled children and "regresses" them so to a point where they can receive parenting they missed. During recorded therapy sessions at the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, we hear that Nolan lies across the lap of his therapist and, while there, must look into her eyes. Gregory Keck, director of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, explains that the eye contact and physical contact are meant to bond parents and children. Beverly James, a therapist who specializes in the treatment of traumatized children, says that therapy that involves any form of coercion retraumatizes troubled children. Instead, she recommends providing a stable, structured environment for such children. To reach Drs. Kupecki and Keck at the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, 12608 State Road, Cleveland, OH, 44133. Or e-mail them at abcofohio@webtv.net.
Finally, writer and editor Marian Lizzi talks about the importance of detaching. Lizzi says she has trouble letting go, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. While people going through breakups tend to focus on their exs, Lizzi says the difficulty is the process rather than the individual.
.