Customer Reviews

Facilitating Developmental Attachment: The Road to Emotional Recovery and Behavioral Change in Foster and Adopted Children

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I would highly recommend this book to other foster parents. It thoroughly describes therapeutic techniques, both for use in the therapist's office and in the home, and explains why and how they work. It emphasizes the hard work of treating and parenting the child with attachment problems and offers hope.

I also want to offer a couple of criticisms: 1) There is too much jargon in the introductory chapters explaining theory; it may discourage some readers, but the book does get easier to understand. 2) The author deals only with success stories. I'm sure his methods have not succeeded with all his clients, and even a short description of "failures" would have provided balance. It would have been helpful if he'd listed his criteria for accepting clients-- what are the behavioral, personality, and/or family characteristics that suggest someone is likely to benefit, and on what basis does he refer clients elsewhere? 3) I wish he'd included something about the politics of getting therapeutic help for foster and adoptive kids. Sounds like many of his clients are longterm, and treatment can't be cheap; I'm wondering how families afford his services. A plug for the importance of adoption subsidies and true treatment foster care would have been a bonus.

Colleen M. McDonald

I have 3 adopted children with attachment problems. I've read many, many books on this subject. Hughes' book, though written primarily for therapists, has been the most helpful to me as a parent. Hughes does a great job of describing unattached children and the treatment therapists and parents need to provide to help children bond. Parents considering adopting older children need to read this book. I wish I'd had this book 10 years ago. The mistakes we could have avoided might have given our children a much better chance at a normal life. I also wish Hughes would include information about strategies for dealing with unattached young children who have become unattached teens.

Even though this book is written for therapists, it is extremely helpful for parents as well. I am the mother of a child with RAD who is being treated according to Hughes' therapy methods, and the child is responding positively after only a few months. She was with a traditional therapist for over a year and her pathology only got worse. Hughes emphasis in therapy is parental attunement with the child. This is key to attachment.

I would bet that the reviewers who have called his techniques "unethical," and "pseudoscience" do not have children with RAD. Holding therapy is not torture, it is therapeutic. Torture is living a life with no attachments to other human beings. Note: By "holding therapy" I am talking about holding the child in your lap, or holding him/her down in a responsible manner (no squashing) if they are out of control and will physically hurt themselves or others. I am NOT talking about re-enacting a birthing experience, sitting on the child, etc. That certainly is abuse, and they've been through enough already without that.

Read this book for understanding, and be sure to find an attachment therapist to work with, hopefully one recommended by other parents with RAD children. You will need professional guidance - it's not a DIY project. Also, if your child has RAD, you should probably also check to see if they also have PTSD. My experience is that this may very well be the case, and you need to treat both together. For this, we used a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist and have gotten very positive results, i.e. child is off almost all of her meds. There is hope, but just know that you need to be resourceful in finding help, and you may have to try some non-traditional methods. Just use some common sense, that is the first rule.

Daniel Hughes, Ph.D. has written a brilliant prescription for working with the attachment disordered child. He is able to deliver his information in simple, easy to understand form while citing all literature and historical information used to develop his approach to working with the most "difficult child". He has an uncanny understanding of the unattached child and has spent his lifetime treating these children to develop a procedure that works, rather than using traditional therapy interventions that have been shown to be less than effective. Kudos to Daniel Hughes, Ph.D for leading the way for the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of children with attachment disorder. His work will go a long way to treating these children as the victims they are rather than pathologizing them rather than their abuse.

Dan is a phenomenal counselor, speaker, and, now, author. His approach is straight forward and compassionate. For any family (mine's adopted) facing attachment issues, Dan's insight is on the mark and his approaches are very helpful. The book builds on numerous theoretical approaches to attachment and provides clinical and therapeutic techniques that really work in helping children build attachment. It is my bible and I have read it twice. My copy has so many underlines highlights and notes from my children that I don't think I could read it a third time for all my scribbling! Most importantly, the suggestions are POSSIBLE. The approaches Dan suggests can be done by any parent or caregiver truly interested in helping their troubled child. It doesn't take two people. Be prepared, it does take the patience of Job. Of course, we all know that is part of the game with troubled children.

This author has shared his skills in working with children who have been damaged emotionally by being removed from their birth parents. The theories and practices he uses are well recommended to all workers who are involved with children in foster care or children who have been adopted, in particular those children who have been adopted from a different culture.

We have been through quite a journey so far with our newly adopted girls, 7,8. Many resources are ineffective that the special needs program gives you when you start. This book helps you understand and work through the special issues of neglected and abused children. I wish we had this book before we evedr adopted.

Great book but aimed more at therapists than parents. There is a good chapter on parenting. I did think it was worthwhile though reading about the type of therapy these kids need, especially since mine is about to start therapy.

I found this book to have insightful information into this disorder. It was able to give several different views on how this disorder occurs, the reaction, and how to find a way of reversing it. The different views on why children act as they do and how others may react differently. There are a lot of personal comments spread throught the book for you to get actual first hand knowledge.

The author's therapeutic interventions were inspired by Daniel Stern's work on "affective attunement", the intersubjective sharing of affect; whereby the mother initiates play with her infant, taking her cue from his affect, and closely matching his for approximately the first 9 months of life. As the child matures, she will introduce new modalities to their "dance" as well as initiate the "interactive repair" necessary for self-integration when the infant's will collides with her own, and the child feels shame and humiliation for the first time.
A bit technical in the beginning, Hughes takes 3 chapters to describe his empathic approach in 3 separate case studies.
He advises adoptive and foster parents to make sure their home atmosphere is therapeutic (i.e. empathetic, loving, fun, generous, secure). The goal, when attachment-disordered children are brought in, will be to convince the child that it is in his best interests to adapt to the new home and not to tantrum or attempt to change the atmosphere of the home. This will be especially important in the beginning--just as it is with a new teacher and his new class. It would be all too easy to change the atmosphere of the home; in which case, the child would remain unchanged. Discipline, given with empathy, can be more effective in the beginning stages of a developing attachment than signs of affection.(p. 198) The child will show his bad side; when the parent responds with calm empathy and consequences, the child moves sooner to the conclusion that he may have to change for his own good.
To communicate empathy, the parent's verbal observation must be nonjudgmental. If the parent is critical, the child will only experience criticism and not empathy.(p. 200) This is the approach of PET (Parent Effectiveness Training) and STEP (Systematic Training for Effective Parenting).
Hughes concludes his book with some excellent house rules to follow when welcoming a foster child into the home.