Attach

I am a member of Attach and I am extremely grateful that I found them.
This organization has considerably helped me get out from the throws of despair while trying to find the help for my extremely traumatized son.
Attach has provided for me very valuable information on how to contact the proper clinician and therapists for my child. The support listserv has been a life saver. Attach DOES NOT support coercise treatment. The narrative component of attachment therapy is something that helps our children create new neuro pathways in their brains. It is ONLY positive.
My family is working on this and my son is getting to see that he does not have to be stuck in negative behaviors. He sees that he does not have to feel shameful and his life is worth it! The recent conference gave me hope for my child. For example, learning how to be mindful so I can better parent my son. Also, looking past the behavior and seeing the trauma to be able to relate to you child to calm his fears.
Attach is an amazing organization. I encourage everyone who is to post thier comments to navigate through the website.

Attach has helped me to better parent my child with reactive attachment disorder/ PTSD I have gaine support from other parents and clinicians as. Well as recommendations for additional resources, therapists, neurppsychologists and Iep planning. Without this organization I would not be as well prepared to meet the significant needs of my daughter. Thank you attach!

Attach has been a lifesaver and life changer for me. Anyone interested in the truth about Attach should go to Attach.org and read their philosophy which does not approve of coercion therapy of any kind. I am a parent of an attachment disordered child. This is a group of professionals and parents who are among the most caring, educated and helpful people I have come in contact with.

I am a child and family clinician, and I have greatly benefitted from ATTACh through the trainings, resources, and educational work they offer. The Board, members, and volunteers of ATTACh consistently work to improve the standard of care that is available to families and children who are living with the aftermath of severe trauma and attachment difficulties. Far from subscribing to fringe approaches, ATTACh actively promotes the use of responsible, evidence-based therapeutic interventions.

I am also an adoptive mother, and within this context, I am particularly grateful to ATTACh for improving the level of knowledge and quality of practice regarding the treatment of trauma and attachment within the mental health, medical, and educational communities. ATTACh fulfills a unique role in this way, and they do it with a high quality of professionalism. Their work is critically important and strives to fill a void that I believe still exists in the graduate education of clinicians, doctors, nurses, educators, and others whose support families raising traumatized children so desperately need.

I would encourage anyone who has concerns about the quality of ATTACh's standards and work to go to its website and read the white papers and resources available there. The work speaks for itself.
http://www.attach.org

I find it disheartening that Peggy Thatcher and others who read the newspapers do not take the time to consider that those reported cases of abuse are front page news because they sell more newspapers. A few bad therapists do not speak to the great accomplishments of ATTACh as an organization and its parent support network.

As a parent of a child (now adult) with Reactive Attachment Disorder, I joined ATTACh long ago - and continue to support it today. So much work has been done by this wonderful organization to further educate therapists and parents in safe, therapeutic techniques. It is the "go-to" place for all who are trying to save our children's lives, and it helps the parents to not feel so alone.

Pat

This is to Peggy Thatcher...

I was extremely heartbroken to read your post and I pray that you will go back on and post another review after reading the (Attach.org) position paper under the About ATTach tab. I found this organization June of 2010 and it saved me as a Mom. I was just hanging on by a thread because I thought that I was the only one that had a child that was out of control because he was too afraid to attach to me. He has almost killed me twice now and also injured me hundreds of times. He has even cracked 5 of my ribs and stabbed me with pens.

This group has not only given me the support I need (talking to people that really "get it"), but it has trained me in all of the crucial areas of raising a severely traumatized child. I would encourage you to look at the speakers that were at this last conference a couple of weeks ago, along with following next years conference and the speakers that will be their. They do NOT even allow speakers at the conference that believe in any of the "holding therapies". There are always several speakers that talk about how the brain is affected by trauma and the fear that our kids carry every day. Their fear comes out as anger. They act the only way they know how to in order to survive.

This group has been a lifesaver for me and hundreds of other parents just like me. Thank you for taking the time to read my email and hopefully look at the attach.org website to see what they truly believe in. I would love to hear what you think of Attach after reading their mission statement.

Thanks again...Faye..... I am one extremely grateful parent to Attach and all of its members. I couldn't get up each day and start NEW, (being the best Mom I can be) without the knowledge and support I get from Attach. I am thankful to all of those board member and volunteers that work countless hours each year to make that years conference even better than the one the year before. My hugs to all of you:~}

Ms. Thatcher's 2009 review is out-of-date and misinformed. Back in the 90's there were some attachment people who were way far afield, but ATTACh as an organization has worked very hard to focus on the positive aspects of attachment therapy of which there is an abundance. Parents, clinicians, therapists, etc. are all participating in making ATTACh (and other organizations dedicated to helping attachment-disordered children) a beacon for enlightened and compassionate efforts at helping children who are severely emotionally disturbed. Lumping them together with a small group of early practitioners who were long ago discredited is hardly fair and it is completely wrong to do to the people who are already giving way beyond the call of duty, This review should be removed from this site!

I am a psychologist with 15 years experience working with high needs children involved with child welfare and adoption. ATTACh is a highly professional organization that has evolved greatly over the last 10 years to become a key resource for professionals and families from all around the world. I recommend their Parent Manual to all my clients. The one conference I attended was a tremendous learning opportunity for me as a professional and involved internationally recognized and highly respected experts in a variety of fields. The organization is a tremendous support to people (especially families) facing hugely challengins situations.

The comments made in the initial review are both dated and inaccurate. ATTACh has explicit policies denouncing Holding Therapy. The policies and initiatives of ATTACh are carefully based in science and the professional literature. It has helped raise issues for helping children and families around the world.

I am an adoptive mom of four. I have found amazing support and resources for healing the traumas from my children's past. For me, I have found resources for parent-child interaction therapy, holistic health services, Theraplay and healing through stories. This is a wide network of parents and professionals that are truly seeking the most cutting edge research in neuroscience and attachment.

I am an adoptive parent and Family Therapist. ATTACh has helped me understand my own children and the teenagers I work with. The network of professionals and parents connect us to the latest research and efficacy based practices the attachment treatment communinty has to offer.
After this year's conference, I have great information and strategies to help my organization work with teenagers in a much more kind, gentle way, thus NOT traumatizing them further, even accidentally.
To put it bluntly, the negative reviews on this site are ill informed. Attending a conference or joining the email listserve or browsing the website will demonstrate that. ATTACh is committed to healing children and families who have been impacted by the negative effects of developmental trauma.

The annual conference provides outstanding training with professionals experienced in the field of child development as well as research experts in trauma. ATTACh also gives its clinical members access to each other via a listserve, helping professionals connect in supporting each other in order to provide the best treatment for children with attachment disturbances. The organization requires clinicians to complete a detailed profile of training and practices, keeping standards of practice at its highest.

I am adoptive parent who ran into walls getting help for a long time with my daughter who has reactive attachment disorder. It was only through this organization that I was able to really understand and work with my daughter. I get the support I need and a chance to work with some of the most renowned professionals that have evidenced based studies behind them. Per the person negatively rating Attach - I find it interesting that she claims that Attach believes in holding therapy or other coercive methods when they published this years ago:
ATTACh Position Statement Regarding Coercive Treatment

The purpose of this document is to set guidelines and standards for ethically and clinically appropriate treatment. In this document, treatment means both psychotherapy and parenting. ATTACh firmly believes that coercion has no place in the therapeutic milieu that therapist and family create in order to help heal a child with a disorder of attachment.

As a matter of policy and practice, ATTACh prohibits the use of coercive interventions by parents or therapists. ATTACh does not condone its members, registered clinicians, or registered agencies using coercive therapies or parenting techniques.

ATTACh believes a central focus of attachment-focused treatment is to create a developmentally appropriate therapeutic environment for the individual to safely work through and integrate previously unmanageable or traumatic experiences and emotions that interfere with the capacity to develop secure attachment relationships.

ATTACh opposes coercion in treatment.

ATTACh opposes abuse in any form at any time.

ATTACh opposes any intervention or activity that endangers a person’s physical or emotional well being or that purposely and intentionally seeks to increase a client’s dysregulation.

ATTACh believes all therapeutic interventions and treatment should be conducted in a respectful manner.

ATTACh believes that all attachment-based treatment should be based on sound theory, research, and principles, and that therapists should practice within their competence and training and with appropriate supervision/consultation.

For further theoretical rationale for this position statement, see the following:
1. “Theoretical Rationale for the Treatment of Disorders of Attachment” by Victoria Kelly, Psy.D.
2. White paper on Coercion….

Ratified: 4, 2003
Revised: 5, 2006

ATTACh is the trade organization of a subset of therapists, therapeutic parents and adoptive parents who adhere to "Attachment Therapy" (aka Holding Therapy, Compression Therapy, Rage Reduction, Holding-Nurturing Process, Rebirthing, Prolonged Parent-Child Embrace, Cuddle Therapy, etc.). Many, if not all of the members, adhere to beliefs about child development that are far out of mainstream. Attachment Therapy is denounced by APSAC and the APA (see the journal "Child Maltreatment," Feb. 2006). Although ATTACh formally denounces abusive methods such as coercive restraint and highly authoritarian parenting methods, many of their members, speakers and resources they recommend continue to promote extremely abusive and unvalidated practices. There is a website for survivors of Attachment Therapy: http://stopchildtorture.org/