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Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children
Building the Bonds of Attachment is the second edition of a critically and professionally acclaimed book for social workers, therapists, and parents who strive to assist children with reactive attachment disorder. This work is a composite case study of the developmental course of one child following years of abuse and neglect. Building the Bonds of Attachment focuses on both the specialized psychotherapy and parenting that is often necessary in facilitating a child's psychological development and attachment security. It develops a model for intervention by blending attachment theory and research, trauma theory, and the general principles of parenting, and child and family therapy. This book is a practical guide for the adult—whether professional or parent—who endeavors to help such children. The second edition of this widely popular book will present the many changes in the intervention model over the past 8 years. These include many changes in both the psychotherapist's and parent's interventions. The attachment history of the adults is made more relevant. There is greater congruence between attachment theory and research and the interventions being demonstrated as well as greater reference to this theory and research.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 8, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
April 20, 2015
Reading this as both a foster/adoptive parent and a clinician who works with attachment-disordered kids, there is a lot to digest in this book and I may better be able to review it after I've had more time to think about it. But for now:
Very readable. The information is conveyed in a case-study + commentary style that makes it easy for the reader to attach the explanation for a particular therapeutic response to the everyday situations that demonstrate the problems faced by attachment disordered kids.
The descriptions of behaviors ring exactly true. The behaviors "Katie" exhibits--lying, defiance, manipulating, sabotaging, retaliating -- are the very ones that my clients exhibit and that lead to rejection by foster and adoptive (and sometimes bio) parents.
I appreciate the author's attempt to explain the shame responses that, left unrepaired, become the root of self-loathing and the unwillingness to enter into intersubjectivity.
I appreciate the "Attitude" he recommends, the combination of acceptance, playfulness, calm, and consistency of consequences.
I appreciate that the author explains his movement (since the first version of this book came out) away from holding therapy, rage induction, etc. in both the introduction and in some of the commentaries. The way holding therapy and the "nothing in life is free" treatment of attachment-disordered kids has turned into an industry of child torture in the hands of untrained and malicious persons is a major concern. In light of that, I wish Hughes had spent more time distinguishing between the chores and reparations Jackie assigned to Katie and the abuse of power exerted by many other parents in the name of this kind of therapy.
I didn't read the first edition of this book, so I can't compare his current position to his former one, but this version was still uncomfortable for me. In the hands of the fictitious foster parent "Jackie", both holding and consequences were delivered by a practiced, well-informed, very self-controlled and benevolent adult with a deep understanding of oppositional thinking, shame, and rejection. How many foster parents fit that description? None that I've met, not even the one in the mirror.
Which brings me to some of the problems I had with the book.
1) What about all the foster kids who continue to have relationships with the bio family who abused/neglected them? Katie had bio-parents who were relegated to the background almost from the moment she was removed from the home. By the time Katie started working with her therapist "Allison", visits with bio parents were not mentioned. Hughes does not say how it would be possible to do the work Allison and and Jackie are doing with Katie if Katie was having regular visits with a bio parent while in foster care or following adoption.
The "you had bad parents, but now you have good parents" narrative of Allison's therapy isn't going to go over well with children who still feel strong loyalty to and spend time with bio family. How do you tell a child "your bio parents did not take care of you so you never learned how to live in a good family" when the child is still living the connection to that "bad" family? How do you say "your birth parents hurt you so bad, you were so scared and alone" when the child you are working with will might still be returned to those parents, is having visits, or there is an agreement to allow visits after adoption?
2) School problems! Hughes barely mentions them, even though for many attachment-disordered kids they are huge. He briefly touches on the social problems Katie experiences when writing about her first overtures at friendship, and briefly mentions schools' use of tangible rewards and his rationale for not using them in Katie's home. But the day-in and day-out problems with emotional disregulation, blaming, lying, and manipulation/control that many attachment-disordered kids exhibit get them into real hot water at school. This results in schools complaining to parents....which should be handled how? More explicit instruction to the therapist/foster parent on this topic would be appreciated by the reader.
3) Hughes states pretty emphatically that the foster parent applying the therapeutic "attitude" he recommends needs to be a person who has resolved their own childhood attachment issues. He illustrates this with an example of how an unresolved issue in Jackie's relationship with her own mother is leaking through to Jackie's work with Katie and therefore needs to be addressed in session with the therapist.
It would be wonderful to have a supply of foster parents on hand who had resolved their own childhoods therapeutically and no longer suffered from wounds to their own attachments. LOL, though. If anything, foster parenting seems to draw in the exact opposite group of people--control freaks (I count myself in this group), those who identify strongly with the projected feelings of abandonment and need they perceive in foster children, and people with savior complexes that cannot withstand the daily drip-drip-drip of disdain and rejection they face from deeply injured children.
4) Siblings! Katie has none, and given the intensity of her therapeutic relationship with Jackie, it would be hard to imagine any foster parent being able to cope with two or three attachment disordered children at once. How would any of this work with equally needy siblings in the home? Did I miss that whole part?
I ended up feeling like Hughes' approach might work if all the planets aligned in a certain way: no siblings to dilute the foster parents' therapeutic alliance with the child; wonderfully mature, psychosocially well-balanced foster parents; bio family comfortably relegated to the misty past; school that wasn't hyper-reactive to every manipulation the child attempts, etc.
As a clinician, the question I have is whether parts of this system can work removed from that kind of fantasy scenario? With a less than great foster parent? A foster parent who works 40 hours per week and has two other young children to care for? A therapist whose "office" is whatever hallway or library carrel or broom closet the school assigns her today? Probably not.
Very readable. The information is conveyed in a case-study + commentary style that makes it easy for the reader to attach the explanation for a particular therapeutic response to the everyday situations that demonstrate the problems faced by attachment disordered kids.
The descriptions of behaviors ring exactly true. The behaviors "Katie" exhibits--lying, defiance, manipulating, sabotaging, retaliating -- are the very ones that my clients exhibit and that lead to rejection by foster and adoptive (and sometimes bio) parents.
I appreciate the author's attempt to explain the shame responses that, left unrepaired, become the root of self-loathing and the unwillingness to enter into intersubjectivity.
I appreciate the "Attitude" he recommends, the combination of acceptance, playfulness, calm, and consistency of consequences.
I appreciate that the author explains his movement (since the first version of this book came out) away from holding therapy, rage induction, etc. in both the introduction and in some of the commentaries. The way holding therapy and the "nothing in life is free" treatment of attachment-disordered kids has turned into an industry of child torture in the hands of untrained and malicious persons is a major concern. In light of that, I wish Hughes had spent more time distinguishing between the chores and reparations Jackie assigned to Katie and the abuse of power exerted by many other parents in the name of this kind of therapy.
I didn't read the first edition of this book, so I can't compare his current position to his former one, but this version was still uncomfortable for me. In the hands of the fictitious foster parent "Jackie", both holding and consequences were delivered by a practiced, well-informed, very self-controlled and benevolent adult with a deep understanding of oppositional thinking, shame, and rejection. How many foster parents fit that description? None that I've met, not even the one in the mirror.
Which brings me to some of the problems I had with the book.
1) What about all the foster kids who continue to have relationships with the bio family who abused/neglected them? Katie had bio-parents who were relegated to the background almost from the moment she was removed from the home. By the time Katie started working with her therapist "Allison", visits with bio parents were not mentioned. Hughes does not say how it would be possible to do the work Allison and and Jackie are doing with Katie if Katie was having regular visits with a bio parent while in foster care or following adoption.
The "you had bad parents, but now you have good parents" narrative of Allison's therapy isn't going to go over well with children who still feel strong loyalty to and spend time with bio family. How do you tell a child "your bio parents did not take care of you so you never learned how to live in a good family" when the child is still living the connection to that "bad" family? How do you say "your birth parents hurt you so bad, you were so scared and alone" when the child you are working with will might still be returned to those parents, is having visits, or there is an agreement to allow visits after adoption?
2) School problems! Hughes barely mentions them, even though for many attachment-disordered kids they are huge. He briefly touches on the social problems Katie experiences when writing about her first overtures at friendship, and briefly mentions schools' use of tangible rewards and his rationale for not using them in Katie's home. But the day-in and day-out problems with emotional disregulation, blaming, lying, and manipulation/control that many attachment-disordered kids exhibit get them into real hot water at school. This results in schools complaining to parents....which should be handled how? More explicit instruction to the therapist/foster parent on this topic would be appreciated by the reader.
3) Hughes states pretty emphatically that the foster parent applying the therapeutic "attitude" he recommends needs to be a person who has resolved their own childhood attachment issues. He illustrates this with an example of how an unresolved issue in Jackie's relationship with her own mother is leaking through to Jackie's work with Katie and therefore needs to be addressed in session with the therapist.
It would be wonderful to have a supply of foster parents on hand who had resolved their own childhoods therapeutically and no longer suffered from wounds to their own attachments. LOL, though. If anything, foster parenting seems to draw in the exact opposite group of people--control freaks (I count myself in this group), those who identify strongly with the projected feelings of abandonment and need they perceive in foster children, and people with savior complexes that cannot withstand the daily drip-drip-drip of disdain and rejection they face from deeply injured children.
4) Siblings! Katie has none, and given the intensity of her therapeutic relationship with Jackie, it would be hard to imagine any foster parent being able to cope with two or three attachment disordered children at once. How would any of this work with equally needy siblings in the home? Did I miss that whole part?
I ended up feeling like Hughes' approach might work if all the planets aligned in a certain way: no siblings to dilute the foster parents' therapeutic alliance with the child; wonderfully mature, psychosocially well-balanced foster parents; bio family comfortably relegated to the misty past; school that wasn't hyper-reactive to every manipulation the child attempts, etc.
As a clinician, the question I have is whether parts of this system can work removed from that kind of fantasy scenario? With a less than great foster parent? A foster parent who works 40 hours per week and has two other young children to care for? A therapist whose "office" is whatever hallway or library carrel or broom closet the school assigns her today? Probably not.
February 19, 2011
This (and all) childcare books should bear this disclaimer in bold type -"DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!" At times you might feel that the best use of this book would be to beat your child with it. However, if you are an adoptive or foster parent, you should read this book sooner than later.
Children who have been separated from their birth mothers or neglected and abused by their birth parents often have a terrible time joining adoptive or foster families. The child may feel entirely dependent on himself because no one else ever cared for him. He therefore doubts that his adoptive or foster parents could actually want to take care of him and rejects their efforts.
These wounds may still hurt even years after living with adoptive families. This book will help parents understand that the child who seems to be selfish and unconcerned with no one's feelings but his own is really not a selfish person underneath. He or she is actually fighting for his emotional survival, trying desperately to keep control of his life and the world around him. This book will also help them realize that they are not bad parents. The focus of this book is to help the parent to acknowledge the child's fear of attachment and, more importantly, to convince him that he is not a bad person and is so worthy of their love. Despite their best efforts, the child will try his hardest to alienate himself from his parents by unacceptable behavior in order to validate his feelings that he is not worthy of their love.
The book emphasizes that it will take a long time and a very strict regimen of together time between parent and child, and possibly continuous doling out of consequences for bad behavior but, in the end, the child will most likely believe that he is a good person who deserves to be loved,is loved by his parents and wants to be loved by them. Key points to understand: consequences for bad behavior are not punishments, they are to help the child understand how members of a family should treat each other in a civilized society. Above all, no matter how infuriating the child may be, never hold a grudge. The child must understand that even though the parent may be angered by his unacceptable behavior, he is still loved and wanted. Depending upon the circumstances of the child's life before joining the family this could take a very long time. Another key point is to eliminate shame from his life. Shame is different from guilt. Guilt is healthy because it fosters repentance, reconciliation and a desire to change. Shame, however, is destructive. I don't mean guilt in the sense of my mother whacking me over the head with a Baltimore Catechism because I lusted in my ten-year old heart. That is shame. I mean guilt in that a person acknowledges that he did something wrong and accepts responsibility.
Also, the book addresses the issue of adoptive or foster parents who themselves have unresolved issues with their parents and how this affects their relationship with their child.
This book is not simply an owner's manual for parents who have adopted or are fostering children who have suffered separation trauma or other traumas or who have been neglected or abused. Although it will clarify some issues, working with a therapist who specializes in adoptive families or separation issues is critical.
Children who have been separated from their birth mothers or neglected and abused by their birth parents often have a terrible time joining adoptive or foster families. The child may feel entirely dependent on himself because no one else ever cared for him. He therefore doubts that his adoptive or foster parents could actually want to take care of him and rejects their efforts.
These wounds may still hurt even years after living with adoptive families. This book will help parents understand that the child who seems to be selfish and unconcerned with no one's feelings but his own is really not a selfish person underneath. He or she is actually fighting for his emotional survival, trying desperately to keep control of his life and the world around him. This book will also help them realize that they are not bad parents. The focus of this book is to help the parent to acknowledge the child's fear of attachment and, more importantly, to convince him that he is not a bad person and is so worthy of their love. Despite their best efforts, the child will try his hardest to alienate himself from his parents by unacceptable behavior in order to validate his feelings that he is not worthy of their love.
The book emphasizes that it will take a long time and a very strict regimen of together time between parent and child, and possibly continuous doling out of consequences for bad behavior but, in the end, the child will most likely believe that he is a good person who deserves to be loved,is loved by his parents and wants to be loved by them. Key points to understand: consequences for bad behavior are not punishments, they are to help the child understand how members of a family should treat each other in a civilized society. Above all, no matter how infuriating the child may be, never hold a grudge. The child must understand that even though the parent may be angered by his unacceptable behavior, he is still loved and wanted. Depending upon the circumstances of the child's life before joining the family this could take a very long time. Another key point is to eliminate shame from his life. Shame is different from guilt. Guilt is healthy because it fosters repentance, reconciliation and a desire to change. Shame, however, is destructive. I don't mean guilt in the sense of my mother whacking me over the head with a Baltimore Catechism because I lusted in my ten-year old heart. That is shame. I mean guilt in that a person acknowledges that he did something wrong and accepts responsibility.
Also, the book addresses the issue of adoptive or foster parents who themselves have unresolved issues with their parents and how this affects their relationship with their child.
This book is not simply an owner's manual for parents who have adopted or are fostering children who have suffered separation trauma or other traumas or who have been neglected or abused. Although it will clarify some issues, working with a therapist who specializes in adoptive families or separation issues is critical.
November 1, 2011
Dan Hughes has become a veritable rock star in the world of attachment issues and traumatised children and I can see why after reading this book. It follows the story of Katie, a fictional child who is removed from her birth home after years of neglect and an incident or two of physical violence. It takes her through a few foster homes and identifies what is going wrong in each, before she lands in Jackie’s, who is a trained and experienced therapeutic carer. It challenges everything you understand about children’s behaviours and typical parenting styles and how they just won’t work with kids like Katie.This book complements The Connected Child (Karyn Purvis), where you can see a lot of the same parenting strategies employed in very involved manner with Katie. It’s confronting, but masterfully written and deep dives on the intensive work that needs to be take place to help repair these kids from their very rough starts and teach them that they are good and special and worth it.
August 29, 2020
I truly can not recommend this book enough. I’ve received lots of training on the subject of developmental trauma and this may be the most helpful resource I’ve come across. I walked away from the book with so much more empathy and love for foster and adoptive parents and children. The book was intriguing and accessible—worthwhile for professionals, parents, and generally interested persons.
December 8, 2008
This book was excellent; it clearly demonstrated a complex process in the form of a fictionalised account about a little girl and her difficult journey from birth to healed and happy 8 year old.
Although slightly cheesy story at times, I felt it was a great way to show the process of helping abused and traumatised children recover through the eyes of a social worker, foster carer and the therapist. I have read a lot of books about attachment, none have actually talked about what you do if a child has a serious attachment issue, how can you turn this around? This book filled in the gap and also gave me a great deal of insight. It's incredibly sad that the children who suffer the most are likely to be rejected over and over again if their attachment problems are not addressed properly. It takes a dedicated and highly trained foster carer in conjunction with dyadic developmental psychotherapy, which was the form of therapy used in this book, the therapy methods made sense and the format made it easy to understand.
The child in this book, Katie, had disorganised attachment, which is one of the most severe and hard to treat, her behaviour was disturbed and extremely difficult to cope with. She could not understand or respond to loving relationships, she had shut down that part of herself and only could communicate through rage, hatred and manipulation. Parents were servants in her life rather the people who could be relied on and trusted. Successive foster carers gave up or even ended up abusing her because they could not deal with her lack of reciprocal love. Her recovery emerged through a solid and consistent relationship with a highly skilled foster carer who worked closely with the child’s therapist. The foster carers emotional health was seen as paramount if she were to maintain a healthy and positive attitude towards her foster daughter. Recovery was hard work for everyone concerned.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who works as a foster carer or has an interest in children with histories of trauma.
Although slightly cheesy story at times, I felt it was a great way to show the process of helping abused and traumatised children recover through the eyes of a social worker, foster carer and the therapist. I have read a lot of books about attachment, none have actually talked about what you do if a child has a serious attachment issue, how can you turn this around? This book filled in the gap and also gave me a great deal of insight. It's incredibly sad that the children who suffer the most are likely to be rejected over and over again if their attachment problems are not addressed properly. It takes a dedicated and highly trained foster carer in conjunction with dyadic developmental psychotherapy, which was the form of therapy used in this book, the therapy methods made sense and the format made it easy to understand.
The child in this book, Katie, had disorganised attachment, which is one of the most severe and hard to treat, her behaviour was disturbed and extremely difficult to cope with. She could not understand or respond to loving relationships, she had shut down that part of herself and only could communicate through rage, hatred and manipulation. Parents were servants in her life rather the people who could be relied on and trusted. Successive foster carers gave up or even ended up abusing her because they could not deal with her lack of reciprocal love. Her recovery emerged through a solid and consistent relationship with a highly skilled foster carer who worked closely with the child’s therapist. The foster carers emotional health was seen as paramount if she were to maintain a healthy and positive attitude towards her foster daughter. Recovery was hard work for everyone concerned.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who works as a foster carer or has an interest in children with histories of trauma.
March 28, 2010
Excellent if you have to work with troubled children. It was an easy, fast read. It broke my heart, but the redemption is in finally making a connection.
July 25, 2023
Ok wow. It’s not often that I read a book for work and find myself unable to put it down and in tears by the end. I already knew that including attachment work in therapy is incredibly important, but this book solidified that notion. Though the book talks about a child who was abused and placed in foster care and was probably considered a tough case, I think every parent should read this. What a charge and purpose it gives to those simple connecting moments as a parent: playing pattycake, this little piggy, tickling. Kids should feel cherished and enjoyed no matter what their behavior is that day.
Totally recommending this book to all my clients now 😅
Oh, it was also a very easy read and written for both client or therapist.
Totally recommending this book to all my clients now 😅
Oh, it was also a very easy read and written for both client or therapist.
January 12, 2019
What does a traumatized child feel inside? How can we respond in ways that help them learn what love is? I would recommend this book as an excellent resource for anyone who works with children who have gone through trauma (or adults, for that matter).
June 15, 2020
Interesting book on how to assist children’s with unhealthy attachments to others due to abuse and/or ignorant parents and care-takers.
I found the most engaging areas in the language and attitude of the person engaging the child with unhealthy attachment. It seems it’s important to accept the child as they are and not put them in a pre-conceived box based on age or grade in school.
Basically, the child has to be retaught relating to their self and to others - something that a healthily raised child would automatically have built in to their development - but now there’s an additional need to untangle the unhealthy established child mindset/software and then establish a healthy one.
I was struck how to adopt a child there’s a rigorous process to determine suitability, but there is not one to have a child.
I found the most engaging areas in the language and attitude of the person engaging the child with unhealthy attachment. It seems it’s important to accept the child as they are and not put them in a pre-conceived box based on age or grade in school.
Basically, the child has to be retaught relating to their self and to others - something that a healthily raised child would automatically have built in to their development - but now there’s an additional need to untangle the unhealthy established child mindset/software and then establish a healthy one.
I was struck how to adopt a child there’s a rigorous process to determine suitability, but there is not one to have a child.
January 24, 2025
Heartbreaking, real, and helpful if you’re raising an unattached child.
September 15, 2017
This was my mum's book. The books examines behaviors of children who do not have a parent attachment figure. The book uses case studies to identify behaviour problems in children who have attachment problems.
May 18, 2025
What an interesting, unique, beautiful, and validating book! This was kind of like "Super Nanny" for attachment-focused parenting. It helped me understand myself and other people better as well as the love of Christ (even though it said nothing at all about that).
Written mainly in narrative form, it does an excellent job of teaching through story and, at the end of each chapter, through summary of therapeutic principles. I listened to the audio book every chance I could get and took notes at the end of each chapter.
This would be an excellent read for any foster or adoptive parent, but I could see it being beneficial to anyone who wants to learn to love others better. It made a big impact on me. I honestly feel like going back and listening again to let it all sink in deeper....
(Audio narrator pronounces the noun affect as af-FECT rather than AF-fect. That was the only negative to the whole 16 hour experience!)
Here are my notes from Chapter 7 which basically summarizes what the author is trying to say:
THE PLAN
- High degree of supervision.
- Choices and responsibilities she can manage.
- No threats or shaming
- Calmly make the child aware of your knowledge and your plan
SHAME
- Help her know what she did and why she did it, not to give her an excuse but to help her feel less profound shame so she can make sense of her behavior.
- She probably has shame almost all the time but can’t let herself experience it.
- Her frequent rage is her effort to control others, maintain her precarious sense of safety, and block out shame.
- If she were to access her inner life, she would be overwhelmed by shame. She believes deep down that she is a bad and worthless kid who no one could ever love.
BOUNDARIES
- Empathize with feelings about boundaries you have set
- If we give her enjoyable experiences that she fails at, we won’t be helping her become securely attached. She will feel like more of a failure, shame will increase, and she’ll be less receptive to further enjoyable experiences.
- We want her to experience a loving relationship with her parents and have freedom to choose what is in her best interest, however she has extreme difficulty integrating these experiences.
- She needs support to accept experiences of fun and love while learning to make better choices.
- Her pervasive shame has to be reduced. Reduce experiences of rejection, humiliation, and contempt from her social experiences.
- Quickly reconnect with her emotionally after experiences of shame (things have gone wrong, she’s made a poor choice, parent has set a limit that she doesn’t like).
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
- Go back to parent/child interactions she should have received in the first two years of her life - countless experiences of acceptance and intersubjectivity that babies and toddlers should receive but that she did not.
- Intersubjectivity - early experiences of reciprocal interest and joy that the parent and infant have over and over, moments when both are lost in mutual eye contact, facial gestures, synchronized movement, and other realities, learning about each other’s wishes and intentions, having an impact on the subjective experiences of the other
- Behavior will likely get more oppositional and angry if this is working well because the parent is asking the child to try again to have relational experiences that only brought her pain and shame when she tried to do them in her early months and years. That’s a big “ask”.
- Hopefully, as she starts feeling safer, she will start seeking out these experiences - with someone who will not reject her regardless of her behaviors.
SETTING A LIMIT
- Setting a limit that upsets her is an opportunity to build her attachment with the parent.
- She gets angry
- Parent helps her regulate her distress
- PACE - Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy
- Empathy rather than annoyance when limits are set
- Experiences of mutual acceptance and enjoyment will hopefully precede and follow the misbehaviors that trigger shame
- When there is a conflict that puts stress on the relationship, be aware of the need to repair the relationship ASAP after the correction or conflict
- Let her know it’s hard to make these changes and you’ll be patient in teaching her how.
- Each time one of these conflicts occurs without her experiencing abandonment or abuse, her sense of safety will be enhanced in the context of her relationship with the parent.
- Anger should be in order to achieve a goal with her rather than the parent having lost control. If the child is able to make the parent angry with her, she is in control so that both are losing.
- Apologize when it is needed.
- Healthy kids with secure attachments are able to deal with their parents’ anger without undermining their own sense of worth or their trust in their parents’ love for them, but, for kids who don’t have a secure attachment history, routine anger or mild annoyance, when frequent, will damage our efforts to facilitate their ability to form a secure attachment.
- For these kids, anger often triggers a pervasive shame response with its related self-contempt and mistrust of the parents’ intentions for the correction.
- Habitual anger will only secure her core sense of worthlessness.
- No rejection. No harshness.
EXPECTATIONS
- If expectations aren’t high, she won’t change at all.
- Limit choices, however, so that she can’t fail.
- Base expectations on developmental age, not chronological age.
- When she doesn’t meet expectations, continue to accept her.
- Repetitive corrections probably indicate that our expectations are too high (appropriate for her chronological age but not her developmental age).
CONNECTION BEFORE CORRECTION
- Connection will give deep knowledge of the child to help you know her developmental age, provide her with support to manage the stress of correction, help her to trust the caregivers’ motives, and make it easier to repair the relationship after the correction.
PACE - Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy
- PACE should be the background atmosphere
- It’s fairly easy then to avoid angry, frustrated interactions much of the time
- Parenting becomes a lot easier regardless of how outrageous the child’s behavior is
- Raising this challenging kid can be rewarding and even fun. You can…
- Relax and enjoy her
- Don’t try to predict and control her behaviors
- Be curious and accepting about them which keeps you open to her and free to respond with empathy
- Accept the way she is experiencing things which helps you meet her needs
- Separate her experience and her behavior
- Be playful and loving in your responses
- She can’t control your emotions, so you can remain emotionally engaged with her
THERAPY
- Help her develop a coherent narrative about herself and her life.
- Know everything you can about her early life of abuse and neglect
- Work to reestablish relationship repair if she becomes annoyed with the therapist or parent when you focus on stressful aspects of her life. This will help her to gradually begin to reduce and integrate her experience of pervasive shame and become more receptive of comforting and to discover that experience of shame will not hurt her relationship with therapist or parent.
- The sequence: establish intersubjective connection; experience a break in the relationship because of shame, frustration, or conflict that might happen when you talk about the difficulty; and then reestablish the relationship. It should happen 1+ times in each therapy session.
- Show deep interest in who she is and the therapist’s acceptance and valuing of her. Arouse the child’s curiosity about the parent’s care, get under the belief that she is bad.
- Have intense curiosity about what she feels and thinks about everything, with a gentle, playful quality.
- Therapist will show confidence in her. There is a healthy self within her that won’t be destroyed or compromised by whatever distressful experiences she has had.
- Therapist will communicate the therapist’s experience of her directly, verbally and nonverbally, so she can discover them, too.
OTHER APPROACHES
- Other approaches stress the need to give the child choices and then let the child learn from the consequences of these choices, even if the child fails again and again.
- Too often the choices are based on chronological rather than developmental age.
- Too often conflicts and limits that produce anger are avoided through lowering of the expectations so the child doesn’t get upset at the cost of not learning how to face frustration and attain more difficult accomplishments.
- PACE is what makes the strategies employed in this new approach therapeutic.
- When a child is not allowed to attend a party, the child is not being punished. She is given alternative activities that are likely to provide fun and be successful. Contrast that with other approaches like “You’re not allowed to be in the living room while we’re having the party. Until you learn to act right, you can’t be with us,” or, “You never do what you’re told. It’s your fault that you can’t be with us.”
- Equally destructive would be allowing the child to attend the party with lots of warnings about how she had to behave properly even though at similar parties her behavior had been disruptive and aggressive. Then when she failed, she’d be yelled at with, “You had your chance! I told you what would happen!”
- Too often caregivers present the child with dozens of chances to make the appropriate choice even when she’s failed on every occasion. The caregivers respond with annoyance, a lecture, and a fresh start, which would more accurately be described as a stale repetition of failure.
Written mainly in narrative form, it does an excellent job of teaching through story and, at the end of each chapter, through summary of therapeutic principles. I listened to the audio book every chance I could get and took notes at the end of each chapter.
This would be an excellent read for any foster or adoptive parent, but I could see it being beneficial to anyone who wants to learn to love others better. It made a big impact on me. I honestly feel like going back and listening again to let it all sink in deeper....
(Audio narrator pronounces the noun affect as af-FECT rather than AF-fect. That was the only negative to the whole 16 hour experience!)
Here are my notes from Chapter 7 which basically summarizes what the author is trying to say:
THE PLAN
- High degree of supervision.
- Choices and responsibilities she can manage.
- No threats or shaming
- Calmly make the child aware of your knowledge and your plan
SHAME
- Help her know what she did and why she did it, not to give her an excuse but to help her feel less profound shame so she can make sense of her behavior.
- She probably has shame almost all the time but can’t let herself experience it.
- Her frequent rage is her effort to control others, maintain her precarious sense of safety, and block out shame.
- If she were to access her inner life, she would be overwhelmed by shame. She believes deep down that she is a bad and worthless kid who no one could ever love.
BOUNDARIES
- Empathize with feelings about boundaries you have set
- If we give her enjoyable experiences that she fails at, we won’t be helping her become securely attached. She will feel like more of a failure, shame will increase, and she’ll be less receptive to further enjoyable experiences.
- We want her to experience a loving relationship with her parents and have freedom to choose what is in her best interest, however she has extreme difficulty integrating these experiences.
- She needs support to accept experiences of fun and love while learning to make better choices.
- Her pervasive shame has to be reduced. Reduce experiences of rejection, humiliation, and contempt from her social experiences.
- Quickly reconnect with her emotionally after experiences of shame (things have gone wrong, she’s made a poor choice, parent has set a limit that she doesn’t like).
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
- Go back to parent/child interactions she should have received in the first two years of her life - countless experiences of acceptance and intersubjectivity that babies and toddlers should receive but that she did not.
- Intersubjectivity - early experiences of reciprocal interest and joy that the parent and infant have over and over, moments when both are lost in mutual eye contact, facial gestures, synchronized movement, and other realities, learning about each other’s wishes and intentions, having an impact on the subjective experiences of the other
- Behavior will likely get more oppositional and angry if this is working well because the parent is asking the child to try again to have relational experiences that only brought her pain and shame when she tried to do them in her early months and years. That’s a big “ask”.
- Hopefully, as she starts feeling safer, she will start seeking out these experiences - with someone who will not reject her regardless of her behaviors.
SETTING A LIMIT
- Setting a limit that upsets her is an opportunity to build her attachment with the parent.
- She gets angry
- Parent helps her regulate her distress
- PACE - Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy
- Empathy rather than annoyance when limits are set
- Experiences of mutual acceptance and enjoyment will hopefully precede and follow the misbehaviors that trigger shame
- When there is a conflict that puts stress on the relationship, be aware of the need to repair the relationship ASAP after the correction or conflict
- Let her know it’s hard to make these changes and you’ll be patient in teaching her how.
- Each time one of these conflicts occurs without her experiencing abandonment or abuse, her sense of safety will be enhanced in the context of her relationship with the parent.
- Anger should be in order to achieve a goal with her rather than the parent having lost control. If the child is able to make the parent angry with her, she is in control so that both are losing.
- Apologize when it is needed.
- Healthy kids with secure attachments are able to deal with their parents’ anger without undermining their own sense of worth or their trust in their parents’ love for them, but, for kids who don’t have a secure attachment history, routine anger or mild annoyance, when frequent, will damage our efforts to facilitate their ability to form a secure attachment.
- For these kids, anger often triggers a pervasive shame response with its related self-contempt and mistrust of the parents’ intentions for the correction.
- Habitual anger will only secure her core sense of worthlessness.
- No rejection. No harshness.
EXPECTATIONS
- If expectations aren’t high, she won’t change at all.
- Limit choices, however, so that she can’t fail.
- Base expectations on developmental age, not chronological age.
- When she doesn’t meet expectations, continue to accept her.
- Repetitive corrections probably indicate that our expectations are too high (appropriate for her chronological age but not her developmental age).
CONNECTION BEFORE CORRECTION
- Connection will give deep knowledge of the child to help you know her developmental age, provide her with support to manage the stress of correction, help her to trust the caregivers’ motives, and make it easier to repair the relationship after the correction.
PACE - Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy
- PACE should be the background atmosphere
- It’s fairly easy then to avoid angry, frustrated interactions much of the time
- Parenting becomes a lot easier regardless of how outrageous the child’s behavior is
- Raising this challenging kid can be rewarding and even fun. You can…
- Relax and enjoy her
- Don’t try to predict and control her behaviors
- Be curious and accepting about them which keeps you open to her and free to respond with empathy
- Accept the way she is experiencing things which helps you meet her needs
- Separate her experience and her behavior
- Be playful and loving in your responses
- She can’t control your emotions, so you can remain emotionally engaged with her
THERAPY
- Help her develop a coherent narrative about herself and her life.
- Know everything you can about her early life of abuse and neglect
- Work to reestablish relationship repair if she becomes annoyed with the therapist or parent when you focus on stressful aspects of her life. This will help her to gradually begin to reduce and integrate her experience of pervasive shame and become more receptive of comforting and to discover that experience of shame will not hurt her relationship with therapist or parent.
- The sequence: establish intersubjective connection; experience a break in the relationship because of shame, frustration, or conflict that might happen when you talk about the difficulty; and then reestablish the relationship. It should happen 1+ times in each therapy session.
- Show deep interest in who she is and the therapist’s acceptance and valuing of her. Arouse the child’s curiosity about the parent’s care, get under the belief that she is bad.
- Have intense curiosity about what she feels and thinks about everything, with a gentle, playful quality.
- Therapist will show confidence in her. There is a healthy self within her that won’t be destroyed or compromised by whatever distressful experiences she has had.
- Therapist will communicate the therapist’s experience of her directly, verbally and nonverbally, so she can discover them, too.
OTHER APPROACHES
- Other approaches stress the need to give the child choices and then let the child learn from the consequences of these choices, even if the child fails again and again.
- Too often the choices are based on chronological rather than developmental age.
- Too often conflicts and limits that produce anger are avoided through lowering of the expectations so the child doesn’t get upset at the cost of not learning how to face frustration and attain more difficult accomplishments.
- PACE is what makes the strategies employed in this new approach therapeutic.
- When a child is not allowed to attend a party, the child is not being punished. She is given alternative activities that are likely to provide fun and be successful. Contrast that with other approaches like “You’re not allowed to be in the living room while we’re having the party. Until you learn to act right, you can’t be with us,” or, “You never do what you’re told. It’s your fault that you can’t be with us.”
- Equally destructive would be allowing the child to attend the party with lots of warnings about how she had to behave properly even though at similar parties her behavior had been disruptive and aggressive. Then when she failed, she’d be yelled at with, “You had your chance! I told you what would happen!”
- Too often caregivers present the child with dozens of chances to make the appropriate choice even when she’s failed on every occasion. The caregivers respond with annoyance, a lecture, and a fresh start, which would more accurately be described as a stale repetition of failure.
March 4, 2023
Muy recomendado para entender el trauma infantil y leer de manera muy práctica la intervención que cubre las necesidades de estos niños y niñas.
October 12, 2008
When I purchased this book I was dismayed to see how expensive it was. I mean, come on, $35 for a 289 page paperback! After I discovered that it is used as a textbook, it all made sense.
I currently work with many children who have attachment disorders, and the families of these children. This is such a difficult thing for families to have to work with. Traditional therapies are not that effective with these kids. This book has given me so much understanding into the history and current fuctioning of this population. I know better what approaches to take with my clients. I know better how to counsel and support the families. I also have the families read this book.
I would not recommend this book for the faint of heart. The little girl's history is disturbing. However, if you work with children who have a history of abuse/neglect, who are adopted or in foster care, this book is such an eye opener. It is filled with knowledge for practitioners and family members alike.
The author does an excellent job of presenting this information. He first gives an overview of attachment. Then he presents the characters in the book. He says that he created Katie (the little girl) from all of the clients he has worked with. The case worker and foster families are also good examples of people a child like Katie might be involved with and how they would probably react to her. The case worker has a new baby of his own and the author is wise compare the case worker's observations of the interaction between his wife and baby to what Katie didn't get during her formative years. The author presents a chapter as a narration of Katie's story, and then ends each chapter with commentary on the chapter.
If you are a clinician, I suggest reading the 2nd edition. The author has specifically updated the way therapy is done with Katie in this edition based on what he learned over the years working with attachment issues after the 1st book.
I currently work with many children who have attachment disorders, and the families of these children. This is such a difficult thing for families to have to work with. Traditional therapies are not that effective with these kids. This book has given me so much understanding into the history and current fuctioning of this population. I know better what approaches to take with my clients. I know better how to counsel and support the families. I also have the families read this book.
I would not recommend this book for the faint of heart. The little girl's history is disturbing. However, if you work with children who have a history of abuse/neglect, who are adopted or in foster care, this book is such an eye opener. It is filled with knowledge for practitioners and family members alike.
The author does an excellent job of presenting this information. He first gives an overview of attachment. Then he presents the characters in the book. He says that he created Katie (the little girl) from all of the clients he has worked with. The case worker and foster families are also good examples of people a child like Katie might be involved with and how they would probably react to her. The case worker has a new baby of his own and the author is wise compare the case worker's observations of the interaction between his wife and baby to what Katie didn't get during her formative years. The author presents a chapter as a narration of Katie's story, and then ends each chapter with commentary on the chapter.
If you are a clinician, I suggest reading the 2nd edition. The author has specifically updated the way therapy is done with Katie in this edition based on what he learned over the years working with attachment issues after the 1st book.
April 10, 2012
I read this book for class, and I loved it! Great for anyone interested in child maltreatment, attachment, therapy with children, foster care...or all of the above (like me). Having worked in foster care for the past 6-7 months, I found myself relating so well to the situation and the feelings of helplessness from dealing with children who have been so severely traumatized. It was difficult to read sometimes (I had to put the book down on occasion..and I even found myself tearing up on the T once!), but it is absolutely rewarding in the end.
March 14, 2015
"Building the BONES of attachment? What the hell are you reading?" ~Security guard at work.
"Bonds. Bonds of attachment."~Me.
"How is that better?"~Security guard.
Although I didn't use this opportunity to introduce my coworker to attachment theory, this book was a good introduction to same for me. It's a fictionalized and gripping account of a child in state custody. Some of the conversations were awfully clunky (curse of the writing major who went to social work school, I guess) but for the most part it held together well.
"Bonds. Bonds of attachment."~Me.
"How is that better?"~Security guard.
Although I didn't use this opportunity to introduce my coworker to attachment theory, this book was a good introduction to same for me. It's a fictionalized and gripping account of a child in state custody. Some of the conversations were awfully clunky (curse of the writing major who went to social work school, I guess) but for the most part it held together well.
January 3, 2011
This book is a bit older when it comes to adoption theories and practices but is an excellent resource for those working in therapeutic foster care and/or adoption. I liked how the author used a fictional story about an abused child to illustrate what could have been complicated strategies and theories. Many concepts can be adapted for use with all hurt children, even on a smaller scale.
October 16, 2012
This book was most valuable in understanding why our adopted children from hard places behave the way they do.
April 18, 2013
Best book I have read about dealing with/ understanding the life of a child with traumatic attachment difficulties. It reads like a story while dispensing much information.
December 24, 2014
Raising a child is scary shit. Damaged or not :S
August 24, 2015
Terrific exploration into the life of a young girl diagnosed with RAD. The author does a great job of looking at the case study from every angle.
August 11, 2023
“This work is a narrative, composite case study of the developmental course of one child following years of abuse and neglect.”
The book follows Katie from her early years of abuse and neglect, to a series of faster homes, to a final home where the foster mom works intensely with Katie and her therapist to create experiences of inter subjectivity to reduce shame and build connection, slowly, slowly helping Katie learn she is worthwhile and love is worth having and that it is safe to trust and love and attach.
The book gives a look into the mind of Katie and how her early experiences led her to feeling of shame and being bad, learning to control and manipulate others because that was the only way she could feel safe. It then shares her inner journey and the therapy and intense mothering required to undo the early damage done when Katie’s needs we’re not met as an infant.
“Her frequent rage is her effort to both control others and maintain her precarious sense of safety, but also to block out the painful experiences of shame.” P84
“Too often parents and other adults work harder to get a child to make the right choice than the child does himself, … the child might be given 3 chances which were preceded by two warnings. It must be confusing to the child. His appropriate behavior is of benefit to whom? If the parent is that responsible for the child acting well, then the child will become less responsible. Once told what is expected of her in a situation, ..not given a second chance, not coaxed to meet the expectation. The situation will be changed to make it more likely for.. to succeed in the future.”p88
Too often caregivers present children like Katie with dozens of chances to make the appropriate choice, even when they have failed on every occasion. TIME TO ADJUST THE CHOICE TO THE CHILD’s level of development.
PLAYFUL, LOVING, ACCEPTING, CURIOUS, EMPATHETIC- the attitude a parent has when in synchrony with her infant or toddler.
Touch is a crucial way in which parents communicate love. Enjoyment comfort support nurturant guidance p91
The intersubjective experience is central to the development and coherence of a sense of self. P8 -how a baby responds to mom responding to her with delight, love, joy, comfort… they are able to experience and integrate positive feelings of interest/excitement and joy/enjoyment. As infants they cannot generate or maintain these pleasureable inner states alone. They need to be having these intersubjective experiences in order to be experiencing these inner states of interest and joy. (Affect regulation and the Irgun of self by Allan Schore)p229
Dyadic developmental psychotherapy. Daniel A Hughes
Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy Diana Foaha
The book follows Katie from her early years of abuse and neglect, to a series of faster homes, to a final home where the foster mom works intensely with Katie and her therapist to create experiences of inter subjectivity to reduce shame and build connection, slowly, slowly helping Katie learn she is worthwhile and love is worth having and that it is safe to trust and love and attach.
The book gives a look into the mind of Katie and how her early experiences led her to feeling of shame and being bad, learning to control and manipulate others because that was the only way she could feel safe. It then shares her inner journey and the therapy and intense mothering required to undo the early damage done when Katie’s needs we’re not met as an infant.
“Her frequent rage is her effort to both control others and maintain her precarious sense of safety, but also to block out the painful experiences of shame.” P84
“Too often parents and other adults work harder to get a child to make the right choice than the child does himself, … the child might be given 3 chances which were preceded by two warnings. It must be confusing to the child. His appropriate behavior is of benefit to whom? If the parent is that responsible for the child acting well, then the child will become less responsible. Once told what is expected of her in a situation, ..not given a second chance, not coaxed to meet the expectation. The situation will be changed to make it more likely for.. to succeed in the future.”p88
Too often caregivers present children like Katie with dozens of chances to make the appropriate choice, even when they have failed on every occasion. TIME TO ADJUST THE CHOICE TO THE CHILD’s level of development.
PLAYFUL, LOVING, ACCEPTING, CURIOUS, EMPATHETIC- the attitude a parent has when in synchrony with her infant or toddler.
Touch is a crucial way in which parents communicate love. Enjoyment comfort support nurturant guidance p91
The intersubjective experience is central to the development and coherence of a sense of self. P8 -how a baby responds to mom responding to her with delight, love, joy, comfort… they are able to experience and integrate positive feelings of interest/excitement and joy/enjoyment. As infants they cannot generate or maintain these pleasureable inner states alone. They need to be having these intersubjective experiences in order to be experiencing these inner states of interest and joy. (Affect regulation and the Irgun of self by Allan Schore)p229
Dyadic developmental psychotherapy. Daniel A Hughes
Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy Diana Foaha
Read
February 8, 2022I am a mother of 3 small children (7yo and twin 4yos) who have been through a lot of trauma on their young lives. Through my own therapy, I'm coming to see the impact of my illness on them, as well as the abuse and neglect that my ex inflicted on them while they were in his care and I was absent due to chemotherapy, etc.
This book is a case study of a deeply traumatized child, who from the moment she was born was abused and neglected. Her problems were deep and severe, and too often, therapy and coping skills focus on behavior. However, if there's rot, it has to be completely root out at the source, and this book explains how to do that.
Although my children have trauma, it's by no means as extensive as the girl in this book. Yet it is trauma, and until this year, I've been unable to give them secure attachment as a parent. First because I didn't 100% understand it, since the pop psych books focus on, again, behavior. But with this book, I saw the therapy -- the burden of which is on the primary caregiver, no the therapist -- and it takes a tough but flexible mindset and a person able to recognize their own triggers and resolve precious childhood issues themselves. If that isn't present, this just will not work.
But the most important thing was examples of what to do. It was a case study, so there was a LOT of incidents by the child toward the foster parents that mirrored some of the behavior I see in my children. What do you do when one of them is screaming at the top of their lungs into another's face? What about taking dinner and dumping it on the floor? Just generally screaming, screeching, and tantruming at age 7. At age 2, I thought, "This is just the terrible twos." But now she's 7 and the behaviors continue.
This book taught me how to maintain The Attitude, how to respond to outburts, especially of violence, and even of refusals to be kind to her sisters. I thought I might be reading several books on childhood trauma, but this one might be it for a while.
This book is a case study of a deeply traumatized child, who from the moment she was born was abused and neglected. Her problems were deep and severe, and too often, therapy and coping skills focus on behavior. However, if there's rot, it has to be completely root out at the source, and this book explains how to do that.
Although my children have trauma, it's by no means as extensive as the girl in this book. Yet it is trauma, and until this year, I've been unable to give them secure attachment as a parent. First because I didn't 100% understand it, since the pop psych books focus on, again, behavior. But with this book, I saw the therapy -- the burden of which is on the primary caregiver, no the therapist -- and it takes a tough but flexible mindset and a person able to recognize their own triggers and resolve precious childhood issues themselves. If that isn't present, this just will not work.
But the most important thing was examples of what to do. It was a case study, so there was a LOT of incidents by the child toward the foster parents that mirrored some of the behavior I see in my children. What do you do when one of them is screaming at the top of their lungs into another's face? What about taking dinner and dumping it on the floor? Just generally screaming, screeching, and tantruming at age 7. At age 2, I thought, "This is just the terrible twos." But now she's 7 and the behaviors continue.
This book taught me how to maintain The Attitude, how to respond to outburts, especially of violence, and even of refusals to be kind to her sisters. I thought I might be reading several books on childhood trauma, but this one might be it for a while.
May 30, 2017
Building the Bonds of Attachment by Daniel A. Hugues is a unique perspective into the life of a child who is diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Not only does it follow the perspective of the child but it also brings in the experience of the therapist, foster parent and social worker. Building the Bonds of Attachment follows the story of Katie, a fictional character who is removed from her birth family after years of neglect, emotional abuse and multiple incidents of physical abuse. She is placed in several different foster homes that are unable to meet her needs until she is finally placed with Jackie, who is trained and experienced in working with children who have been traumatized.
We are introduced to Stephen, Katie’s social worker who cares deeply about Katie’s well being. In his time working with Katie he recognizes through having his own child the importance of early attachment and how Katie’s trauma has impacted her ability to trust, feel safe and have a healthy sense of her self. We also meet Allison, Katie’s therapist who provides her with a safe but intense treatment approach to help her build an attachment to Jackie by working through her past traumas. We get an in depth perspective into Jackie, who is an incredibly strong and caring person. Her training with Allison has taught her to parent with The Attitude, which is based on playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. This attitude allows Jackie to have a real empathetic understanding to what Katie is feeling and experiencing, allowing her to respond with playfulness and empathy rather than in a punitive manner.
This book is highly recommended for any caregiver, therapist, or social worker who is caring for a child with attachment challenges. Although it is difficult to read about the trauma that Katie experienced, the story does give hope that these children can learn to attach and experience a healthy life. The book also includes helpful information regarding children’s development, suggestions for how to incorporate The Attitude as caregiver, and other resources about attachment.
We are introduced to Stephen, Katie’s social worker who cares deeply about Katie’s well being. In his time working with Katie he recognizes through having his own child the importance of early attachment and how Katie’s trauma has impacted her ability to trust, feel safe and have a healthy sense of her self. We also meet Allison, Katie’s therapist who provides her with a safe but intense treatment approach to help her build an attachment to Jackie by working through her past traumas. We get an in depth perspective into Jackie, who is an incredibly strong and caring person. Her training with Allison has taught her to parent with The Attitude, which is based on playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. This attitude allows Jackie to have a real empathetic understanding to what Katie is feeling and experiencing, allowing her to respond with playfulness and empathy rather than in a punitive manner.
This book is highly recommended for any caregiver, therapist, or social worker who is caring for a child with attachment challenges. Although it is difficult to read about the trauma that Katie experienced, the story does give hope that these children can learn to attach and experience a healthy life. The book also includes helpful information regarding children’s development, suggestions for how to incorporate The Attitude as caregiver, and other resources about attachment.
November 30, 2022
I read this book as a requirement for one of my graduate courses. This book is very well written and easier to understand than some other texts I have read. You are introducing to a little girl named Katie who experienced horrific abuse, neglect and trauma from her birth parents. The book does go into detail of these trauma’s “warning label” it is disturbing since it is based on a true story plus many children suffering about 3.4 million in the US alone. This is one reason I chose to be part of the field of education/development to make a difference. The author flips between telling a story and discussing the clinical terms to why we used this method. Anyone going into or is in the field of education/therapy or is thinking about being a foster/adoptive parent this is a mandatory read. It shows that what we interpret or see on the outside weather it be behaviors is not what that child is feeling thinking on the inside. These wounds do not heal over night and takes constant dedication from the adult to put what is best for that child before their own needs and in some cases their own families wants. Must read!
July 17, 2017
Follows the story of a troubled attachment-wounded girl from birth through years of abuse and neglect including several foster placements and therapy. In this breakthrough work by Dan Hughes understanding the root of behavioral and thought challenges in these children, he shares the current best practice in how to rehabilitate them.
I strongly disliked reading this book but was required to for one of our children's therapies. It is heartbreaking, at times discouraging, and yet shines a ray of hope for these children. Did I like it? No. In fact I had nightmares about our child being like Katie. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. This work is not for lightweights and RAD (reactive attachment disordered) children are not going to just disappear. They will grow up and become our future. The root of their disorder is never their fault.
How will we help them overcome to grow into contributing members of society?
I strongly disliked reading this book but was required to for one of our children's therapies. It is heartbreaking, at times discouraging, and yet shines a ray of hope for these children. Did I like it? No. In fact I had nightmares about our child being like Katie. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. This work is not for lightweights and RAD (reactive attachment disordered) children are not going to just disappear. They will grow up and become our future. The root of their disorder is never their fault.
How will we help them overcome to grow into contributing members of society?
February 1, 2025
while the ending was abrupt and there are gaps in aspects of the treatment covered in the book, I was moved nevertheless. The audiobook version made it more digestible as all the dialogue was more realistic. This offered a picture of how a child with an insecure attachment can build the bonds of attachment through intensive therapy and structured parenting. I was generally struck by just how much time and dedication the therapeutic foster mom, jackie, put into helping Katie. She goes through so much and keeps her calm. Of course it's an idilic scenario painted in the book (only 1 foster child in the home, understanding teenagers in the home, loving husband, fabulously mature and loving mom) but nevertheless offers a helpful montage of how to work with a child with a disordered attachment. I have never heard of dyadic developmental psychotherapy-seems fascinating. helpful resource for those looking to work with those who have attachment difficulties
June 29, 2020
An important read for every foster and adoptive parent, child therapist or anyone whose child has experienced trauma. It gives great insight into the reasons behind the child's behaviour and examples of therapeutic parenting. It covers issues such as Reactive Attachment Disorder, shame and how the carer's own attachment history has an effect on how they parent.
I bought this book, thinking it would be heavy going but one that I needed to read. I was pleasantly surprised that it was easy to read as it is written as a story, yet with important lessons embedded. I wanted to read on to find out how Katie progressed and at the same time was learning the principles of therapeutic parenting.
I bought this book, thinking it would be heavy going but one that I needed to read. I was pleasantly surprised that it was easy to read as it is written as a story, yet with important lessons embedded. I wanted to read on to find out how Katie progressed and at the same time was learning the principles of therapeutic parenting.
July 3, 2021
A good book for the families of children with attachment disorders, easy to read and understand because it is presented as a narrative rather than a case study.
That being said, based on my experience, I would take the advice and therapy demonstrated with a pinch of salt. The strategy of holding the child during a tantrum or shame experience is both impractical and induces extreme stress in the child and parent/carer, which is not affective for forming attachment but is harmful. Perhaps this strategy is a bit dated.
There are some good ideas in here and the concept of maintaining the "attitude" is useful.
That being said, based on my experience, I would take the advice and therapy demonstrated with a pinch of salt. The strategy of holding the child during a tantrum or shame experience is both impractical and induces extreme stress in the child and parent/carer, which is not affective for forming attachment but is harmful. Perhaps this strategy is a bit dated.
There are some good ideas in here and the concept of maintaining the "attitude" is useful.
July 25, 2017
Although the book is about a fictional child dealing with attachment issues, stemming from early childhood trauma, it is built around case studies. It rings frighteningly true. The stark reality of early childhood trauma and the resultant behaviors is a nightmare to live through. This is a great book for those in contact with a child suffering from RAD, ODD, or PTSD, as well as to gain insight and empathy for the child's caregiver. This is a long lonely road with what feels like little hope, but this book does speak to the therapeutic hope that does exist with proper insight and therapy.
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