I was startled to read in R.A.D.ically Overdiagnosed... that

It appears that “Attachment Disorder” as we know it today first established a toehold in the US in the early 1980’s.

As I blogged in Early History of Attachment Theory, attachment theory started with Freud in the early 1900s. John Bowlby (in the 1950s) and Mary Ainsworth (in the 1960s) did clinical studies on mother-child separation. John is considered the father of attachment theory.


But then I re-read the R.A.D.ically Overdiagnosed... and realized they were talking about attachment therapy in the US. So I thought that I would explore "attachment theory" history in the US.


Starting with Colorado......

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst of Hungarian extraction, Rene Arped Spitz is born in Vienna in 1887 and dies in Denver (Colorado) in 1974. He made his career in the United States where he continued the work of Sigmund Freud.


From: Rene Arped Spitz

The effects of bleak care taking environments were studied by Rene Spitz and William Goldfarb in 1945. Spitz was a consulting doctor at a foundling home whose infants wasted away and died from a condition called marasmus. He discovered that despite hygienic surroundings and a nourishing diet, the babies received minimal stimulation from the social and physical environment. Spitz showed that mothering is essential to healthy psychological development and to life itself.


From: THE PARENT NETWORK FOR THE POST-INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD, Spring, 1995

The condition Rene Spitz called anaclitic depression is now considered an attachment disorder. Spitz observed young children in an orphanage.......


From: Child Abuse & Neglect: Reactive Attachment Disorder

Or how about Harry Harlow who as born in Iowa in 1905. He died in 1981.

His Ph.D. was in experimental psychology, and he taught for forty-four years (1930-1974) at the University of Wisconsin. His experimental work with animals changed thinking about animal development and learning. His work had practical applications in education and in the developmental aspects of human infancy and childhood.


From: Harlow, Harry F.

Harry did the famous experience with monkeys and published his paper in 1959. “Love in Infant Monkeys,” Scientific American 200 (June 1959)


He provided a surrogate mother to 4 monkeys that was covered in cloth. He provided a surrogate mother to 4 monkeys that was just wire. And 4 other baby monkeys were totally isolated from a surrogate mother/other monkeys for 8 months. Can you guess which group of monkeys had the most bizarre behaviors and struggled socializing with other monkeys?


Here is a link to more information on the study.

Or Selma Fraiberg who was born in Detroit in 1918. She died in 1981. She demonstrated

that deprivation of a nurturing mother or mother-substitute diminishes later capacity to commit to loving relationships and the human community.

From: ChildDevMedia.com

And then I realized that I was being a weasel. I was focusing on just one piece of the blog rather then the message. Children are being hurt in the name of "attachment therapy". Yes, it happened. Yes, children have died.


Here is an interesting article on these deaths. It does mention “rebirthing” which has never been an accepted therapy. This is where the child is placed under pillows/blankets and has to "fight" their way out to be reborn.


Reactive Attachment Disorder: The Evolution of Attachment Therapy


As the author of this article points out...

I am unaware of even a single example of a child dying as a result of attachment therapy conducted by a licensed attachment therapist.

My next stop was Dr Matthew Speltz's paper titled Description, History and Critique of Corrective Attachment Therapy. It was written in 2002. It was pointed out to me as an anti-attachment therapy article. Dr Speltz is a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine.


I really didn't disagree with him. I cannot find any scientific studies that prove "holding" to force a child to rage is therapeutic. And once they are past the rage they will attach to the parent. Here is what he said.

Today's holding therapies trace their roots to the controversial techniques developed by Robert Zaslow in the 1970s for autistic individuals. Zaslow believed that inducing rage by holding autistic individuals - often against their willl - would lead to a breakdown in the person's defense mechanisms, making the individual more receptive to and cooperative with others (Zaslow & Menta, 1975). These ideas have been dispelled by research on the genetic/biologic causes of autism. Unlike Zaslow's techniques, interventions based on behavioral principles have proven effective with autistic children.

From: Description, History and Critique of Corrective Attachment Therapy