Product Description
Reactive attachment disorder. Attachment theory, Attachment in children, Attachment-based therapy (children), Attachment therapy, Attachment disorder, Attachment measures ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

it was ok
fairly helpful; most difficult actually was the font size in reading the book; way tooo small which made reading tedious; somewhat repetitive; dull ... Read more

Product Description
This book is for parents who are raising children with brain-based disorders.The disorder might be Autism, Aspberger's Syndrome, Attention Deficit, Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity, Neurologically Based Learning Disabilities, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Clinical Depression or Bi-Polar Manic Depression.

Typically, children with these disorders struggle in their ability to learn the activities of daily living such as:dressing, hygiene, grooming, and academics.In the older child there is a struggle to engage in purposeful activity, problem, solve, follow-through, and cope with stress.In adulthood these difficulties show themselves in such things as a lack of safety awareness, poor money management, and poor judgement in general, which will have an impact on the individual's ability to live independently.In a very broad way, these life skills can also be thought of as adaptive skills.

Unknown to many is that at the heart of each of these brain-based disorders is something called Sensory Integration Dysfunction.Sensory Integration Dysfunction is a term used to define the brain's inability to integrate for use the information received from the senses of movement, touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell.Since all information that requires higher level thinking enters the brain by way of these sensory routes, it is critical that the human brain be able to receive correctly, or at least tolerate, input from the senses.Occupational therapists trained in treating Sensory Integration Dysfunction strive to help the child not only tolerate sensory input, but also to integrate it for use and thus promote optimal brain health, growth, and development.Granted, brain-based disorders are disorders for life; we cannot fix them.However, studies have found that when treated also with Sensory Integration Therapy, these disorders can be impacted by degrees so that adaptive life skills can be learned all the while the nervous system is maturing.This can mean independent living with supervision one day for the adult with a disability.It can mean an age appropriate child being able to stay home alone safely for several hours.It can mean a child being able to let himself into an empty house at the end of the school day without fear.It can mean a child going to school, tying her shoes, making a sandwich, and participating in social groups.It can mean a family living a relatively normal life and in harmony with the child with the disability.

Living in harmony with a child with Sensory Integration Dysfunction can be especially challenging.Unlike children who have noticable physical handicaps, Sensory Integration Dysfunction is a hidden disorder.Too many people (parents and professional alike) do not know what it looks like, as was the case with Shilts; the author of this book.As an adoptive parent, Shilts loved her child as much as any birth parent does.She had the best of intentions.Her problem was ignorance.Ignorance about Sensory Integration Dysfunction and its impact on behaviors as well as its impact on the parent-child relationship.Some children with Sensory Integration Dysfunction can have problems building and maintaining personal relationships in general.For children with severe Sensory Integration Dysfunction (as was the case with Shilts' child) it can be impossible.An intimate relationship, such as that between parent and child (and later a mate), requires the ability to give and take in a reciprocal way.Shilts knew early on that there was something missing in the relationship-something she coult not define-which was the child's inability to give love back.

Shilts struggled for a long time with the traditional techniques thought to be helpful to children who do not relate to others.But it wasn't until she realized her child's problem was with the brain rather that the spirit that she was able to move forward; to start "thinking outside of the box."Parents and therapists in many other states were using cognitive remediation/brain development techniques and strategies to help children like hers.She did not have to accept that nothing could be done.So she set to work to help her child.And help him she did.It was a spiritual journey as well as an educational one as she had to have faith in something she could not always see:the development of a child from the inside out.She also learned that she alone was the best advocate for her child.

This book is inspirational for parents.Shilts' children are now in adolescence and leading full and productive lives.Shilts is in private practice teaching other parents in her area how they too can bring nature and nurture together to develop the child from the inside out.And because the artist in her lives to create, she works on a novel in her spare time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Love is a Start is Best Place to Start for Special Parents!
If you work with children with special needs, are a parent of children with special needs, a health professional, a social worker, an adoption worker, a teacher, or a counselor--this book is a MUST read.Before youadopt special kids, you should read LOVE IS A START.This book should berequired reading for anyone pursuing adoption, foster parenting, or adegree in any field that has to do with children with Fetal AlcoholSyndrome, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, or any other emotionaldisorders. If politicians would take the time to read this book, they woulddiscover the horror story that too many families live with every day.Thehorror story that is told in LOVE IS A START isn't just the story thatDonna Shilts writes of her own children, but it is the horror that she isnot alone.Donna's family is just one of thousands in the United Statestoday struggling to live one more day with disabilities.Shilts has giventhose who have no voice, a platform from which to soar.Shilts allows thereader to live the life of an American woman, struggling to rear childrenthat no one else wanted.Policy would surely change, were the right policymakers to read this life-changing story. Reading this book will mean thatother parents with special needs children will be heard, they will bebelieved, and they will be understood. Excellently written, a page turner(I read it in two sittings!), and painfully honest, Donna Shilts makesherself vulnerable to her readers as she exposes her inner most thoughts ofwhat it is like to parent an adopted child who seemingly cannot bond,understand, or love.She takes us on her journey, beginning only with lovein her heart, and guides us through the rockiest places to finally arriveat hope.This book is an encouragement for all parents and professionalswho dare to believe in a child that others haven't the courage to believein.

An excellent and informative book
As an adoptive parent of two children -- one of whom suffered neurological damage as a result of early neglect -- I read this book with great interest. It is a very realistic account of the struggles one faces inunderstanding what needs to be done. I could relate so well to thediffering (and often contradictory) diagnoses one receives; to theinability of doctors and psychologists to understand the problems you face; as well as thoses in the school systems to understand how your childlearns. I identified with the struggle to decide if medication will helpand with the realization that as the parent you and only you can serve asthe best advocate for your child. This is one of the better accounts ofsensory integration issues and I intend to recommend it to others, as itgives many good illustrations of how important sensory issues can be. Ivery much appreciated the honesty in the book. There are so many times wequestion our ability to parent; wonder what we have taken on; and try tofind the correct strategy to manage difficult behaviors. Ms. Shilts hasreally "been there" and I am so grateful for her story. I wouldhope to see a follow up book in a few years as I grew so attached to bothboys that I would love to know how they are faring in their teenage years.

Fascinating but worrying
In many ways, this is a fascinating account of the devastatingeffects on one parent of tring to raise two children with fetalalcohol effects/syndrome and other serious special needs, Jacob andJared. Yet there are many aspects of it which are worrying in ways which I'm sure the author did not intend.

The book seems to be intended as a plea for better services and more respect for families adopting children with special needs, yet in many respects it is more effective, possibly unintentionally, in highlighting the self-generated problems faced by adoptive parents with unrealistic expectations (she collapses in despair when she realizes of Jared "I couldn't fix him" and decides that this means "his would be a wasted life") and mixed feelings even before adoption.

In contrast to her clear affection for Jacob, her relationship to the younger boy, Jared, is particularly worrying. She states that she didn't want to adopt him and didn't feel she could meet the needs of both boys, but did so because she felt that the two boys should be together. She may love Jared, but she certainly doesn't seem to like him, and describes in detail the resentment and despair he provokes in her (one day, she writes "I actually found myself thinking that if he was ran over by a car and killed, the world would be the better for it"). She concludes at one point, "There would never be any joy in parenting Jared - only hard work, disappointment, shame, and sorrow," and gives no indications that she has revised this opinion by the end of the book.Her treatment of Jared at one point appalls an old friend so much that she never visits again.

She rejects Jared's diagnosis with high-functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome on the grounds that "I knew enough about autism to think there was a mistake", although she doesn't know enough to know that this diagnosis doesn't contradict their earlier diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder as she claims - in fact, it confirms it, as Asperger's syndrome is one of the group or spectrum of conditions referred to collectively as pervasive developmental disorders. She states that Jared is socially isolated and inept owing to his inability to understand social rules, a perfectionist with huge problems transitioning from one activity to another, obsessed with tying things up, restricted in his play, incredibly literal in his understanding of words, clumsy, one-sided in his interactions, and often "in a world of his own"; he rocks, bangs his head when little, runs in circles, has a compulsive need for sameness, and serious sensory hypersensitivities, including an auditory processing problem - all classic symptoms of a pervasive developmental disorder. Perhaps the diagnosis was indeed incorrect, but Shilts never gives any reasons why she thinks so. Instead, she sees Jared's inability to understand or take into account other people's feelings as proof that he is "greedy and selfish", a "willful and malicious child".

She is puzzled as to why her endless "processing" of his misbehaviour with him fails to work (he's diagnosed as having a language disorder and has huge problems connecting cause and effect), while mentioning that this processing alternates as a response with increasingly severe spankings.

She claims that finally learning about sensory defensiveness changed everything for the better, and yet the two boys were diagnosed with sensory integrative problems early on: the smallest amout of reading about sensory integration problems should surely have mentioned sensory hypersensitivity and defensiveness. She explains that sensory integration dysfunction causes tactile defensiveness (which makes touch overwhelming and intolerable), but then enthusiastically describes her use of "holding therapy", which involves forced holding of a child until they submit (and is considered abusive by many experts).

Special needs adoption undeniably poses great challenges.Parenting one child with severe special needs can put an often unendurable strain on any parent; the stress of trying to parent two must be incredible, and no parent is perfect. But if Jacob and Jared are very difficult children, Donna Shilts in many respects seems to be an equally difficult parent. She sets out idealistically to "rescue" the two children, but eventually her actions seem to verge on the abusive, including actually biting Jared (aged 9) as a punishment for biting other children. Parenting children with special needs is very tough, but ultimately, they are the children and she is the adult. It takes great courage to admit to disliking and resenting a child, let alone biting them; but the reader cannot then be asked to admire the person who makes such an admission as a "model parent" or pity them as a martyr.

A roller-coaster ride through life with special kids
As the adoptive mother of one child with FAE and sensory-integration disorder and another with language delays and learning differences, I haveto say that I greatly enjoyed this book...Well, *enjoyed* isn't quite theright word, is it? Empathized, sympathized, identified, learned, felt sad,felt mad, felt relieved that someone else could feel so clueless--all ofthose are closer to the mark. The experience of thinking everything is allfigured out followed by the realization that things are still not right isa very familiar one, and it's great to see it captured in print so thatparents like me can show it to other people and say, "See, I'm not theonly one who's gone through this! I'm not nuts!" It's a tremendouslyempowering read for those who are on the same roller-coaster of life withchallenging children, and an enlightening parent's-eye view for those whoare watching from the ground.

One family's struggle to meet the needs of damaged children-
Donna Shilt's book will validate the experience of many families with special needs children.She describes the daily frustration, exhaustion, uncertainty, joy and fear of dealing with children that nothing seems tohelp--from the dazzling insights and deep claims of love to the shame offailure and the soul-deadening effects of trying to love a child who can'tlove back, help a child who can't or won't "get better." The bookreads like a novel--the almost surreal struggle of an adoptive mother tofind out what works and who can help in the face of fragmented services andponderous bureaucracies.The book brought home to me the tremendousisolation of all caregivers in our society and the incredible amount oflife-energy, intelligence and commitment necessary to deal with damagedchildren and all the professionals and organizations who try to help. Every prospective adoptive or foster parent should read this book to get aglimpse of what they're in for.Those of us in the "helpingprofessions" should read it to get a clearer understanding of how ourfocus on the needs of the child can exclude or ignore the needs of the caregiver and devalue their experience.The author is not Pollyanna.Shedoesn't have or offer a cure for every disturbed child.On the other hand,she won't insult your intelligence, and the solution she found offers hopefor children whose behaviors include out of control rages, destructiveness,learning problems and attachment issues.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
"In this comprehensive and insightful work, Dr. Sharon K. Farber provides an invaluable resource for the mental health professional who is struggling to understand self-harm and its origins. Using attachment theory to explain how addictive connections to pain and suffering develop, she discusses various kinds and functions of self-harm behavior." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

great timing
First this is a great book! I was in desperate need of this book and had to rush order it. It was supposed to take 2 business days to be shipped but i got it in one!

A high school teacher.
This is an impressive and fascinating book.As a high school teacher for well over 20 years, I picked it up because one hears so much nowadays about these disorders among adolescents.Since I have no specialized knowledge in this field (nor any personal issues here), I was apprehensive about my ability to read what I assumed would be highly technical material.To my delight, I found the writing style itself extremely clear, and the material deeply engrossing.I feel I've gained enormous understanding of an area that was not at all clear to me before, and, even better, new ways of thinking about people and myself in general.What a treat!

Lucid and insightful
This book is an academic exploration of some pretty heady topics, and although I have no experience in psychoanalysis, I found it to be a real page-turner. The writing is perfectly descriptive but Farber uses fascinating examples in order to avoid alienating the layperson. She is interested in what is so ordinary about certain impulses, and the cases in her book are not monsters. If you are interested in the mind and what makes us human, read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This book guides childcare professionals through attachment theory and provides techniques for caring for children with attachment difficulties. It explains what attachment is, what different patterns of attachment look like in children and young people, how early attachment experiences affect their lives, and how this understanding can help childcare workers to develop therapeutic ways of caring. By understanding these issues, childcare workers are better equipped to help and support the troubled children they care for. This book shows how to promote recovery through secure base experiences in a therapeutic environment and provides solutions and methods to tackle challenging and problem behaviour, anger and the effects of trauma in children with attachment problems. This essential book will be invaluable to professionals such as residential carers, social workers and foster carers who work in a therapeutic environment with vulnerable and troubled children and young people. ... Read more

Product Description
The cross-linguistic differences documented in studies of relative clause attachment offer an invaluable opportunity to examine a particular aspect of bilingual sentence processing: Do bilinguals process their two languages as if they were monolingual speakers of each? This volume provides a review of existing research on relative clause attachment, showing that speakers of languages like English attach relative clauses differently than do speakers of languages like Spanish. Fern ndez reports the findings of an investigation with monolinguals and bilinguals, tested using speeded ("on-line") and unspeeded ("off-line") methodology, with materials in both English and Spanish. The experiments reveal similarities across the groups when the procedure is speeded, but differences with unspeeded questionnaires: The monolinguals replicate the standard cross-linguistic differences, while bilinguals have language-independent preferences determined by language dominance - bilinguals process stimuli in either of their languages according to the general preferences of monolinguals of their dominant language. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Anxiety Disorders, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Twenty-six to forty percent of individuals suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA) do not benefit significantly from cognitive-behavior therapy. Marital problems are among risk factors that may explain this limited impact. Some studies suggest that PDA treatment outcome is related to the couple's ability to communicate and solve problems during and after treatment. It may be also useful to further clarify the interplay of marital interpersonal variables with PDA severity before any intervention. This study aims at specifying the links between PDA symptom severity on the one hand and, on the other hand, marital adjustment, attachment style and personal problem-solving skills in both spouses. Results obtained from a group of 67 PDA patients (44 women and 23 men) and their partners showed that some PDA symptoms or comorbid depressive symptoms were more severe when both spouses independently scored low on problem-solving skills or marital adjustment, and when attachment style of PDA patients was insecure. Marital adjustment and difficulties in problem-solving, more specifically, avoidance of problem-solving activities in PDA patients, were the best predictors of PDA symptom severity. In light of these findings, a more complete program of problem-solving and acceptance strategies could be developed as part of a cognitive-behavior treatment of PDA. Other theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. ... Read more

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Trauma models of mental disorder (alternatively called trauma models of psychopathology) emphasise the effects of psychological trauma, particularly in early development, as the key causal factor in the development of some or many psychiatric disorders (in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder). Trauma models are typically founded on the view that traumatic experiences (including but not limited to actual physical or sexual abuse) are more common or more serious than thought in the histories of those diagnosed with mental disorders. Such models have traditionally been associated with psychoanalytic approaches, notably Sigmund Freud's early ideas on childhood sexual abuse and hysteria. John Bowlby, who developed Attachment theory, also describes many forms of mental illness as based on early childhood trauma. In addition there is significant research supporting the linkage between early experiences of chronic maltreatment and later problems. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Addictive Behaviors, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Attachment, fear of intimacy and differentiation of self were examined by means of self-report questionnaires in 158 volunteers, including 99 clients enrolled in addiction treatment programs. As expected, clients (who were undergoing treatment for alcoholism, heroin addiction, amphetamine/cocaine addiction or cannabis abuse) reported higher levels of insecure attachment and fear of intimacy, and lower levels of secure attachment and differentiation of self, compared to controls. Insecure attachment, high fear of intimacy and low self-differentiation appear to characterize clients enrolled in addiction treatment programs. Such characteristics may reflect a predisposition to substance problems, an effect of chronic substance problems, or conceivably both. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Clinical Psychology Review, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is one of the most incapacitating of anxiety disorders, and is rated as a leading cause of disability by the World Health Organization (1996). Current cognitive models of OCD have focused on beliefs and management strategies involved in the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of OCD. However, despite evidence of their association to psychopathology, few researchers have applied the idea of underlying cognitive-affective structures, such as perceptions about the self and world, as operating in individuals with obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behaviors. This paper critically engages with current cognitive, developmental, and attachment research associated with views about the self and world. It is argued that consideration of such underlying cognitive-affective vulnerabilities may lead to a broader understanding of the development and maintenance of OCD. Consistent with previous theoretical work (e.g. Guidano, V. F., & Liotti, G. (1983). Cognitive processes and emotional disorders. New York: The Guilford Press.), we also argue that early experiences of parenting lead to the development of a dysfunctional self-structure and world-view relevant to OCD. Thus, this paper aims to extend the focus of current OCD research by exploring the possible role of a broader range of underlying vulnerability structures in the development and maintenance of OCD-related dysfunctional beliefs and symptoms. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Mental Health Counseling, published by American Mental Health Counselors Association on October 1, 2002. The length of the article is 3653 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Breaking the cycle: a clinical example of disrupting an insecure attachment system. (Practice).
Author: Sheri Pickover
Publication: Journal of Mental Health Counseling (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 2002
Publisher: American Mental Health Counselors Association
Volume: 24Issue: 4Page: 358(9)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
A book on Attachment Disorder (AD) that explains what AD is, and how it can be successfully treated through intensive attachment therapy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Abusive "Therapy"
Oh god, the things the author says in this book are so awful!Here are just a few that send chills down my back:

"Children with...[Attachment Disorder] really hate being touched...they commonly complain constantly about various aches and pains, things that itch, and parts of themselves that they need to move whenever they're being held. The therapist may sometimes need to briefly cover a child's mouth with a cupped hand...in order to cut off the child's constant complaints that are preventing therapy from being able to progress..." page 113

"Whenever a therapist lies on top of a child, with the child face up, and with the therapist facing the child, this is known as compression. This technique is also used to help a child become enraged, to help to re-enact the need cycle, and to help a child to access and work through memories of past traumas..." pages 83-84

"Compression can be very useful in the process of helping children to work through and release trapped feelings of terror, as the therapist can put a small amount of weight on children until terror is triggered, then takes that weight off, and helps children to calm back down. Then slightly more weight can be put on to again trigger terror ... This process can take several hours, and may even take several days..." page 98

"It usually isn't necessary to put more than 50 pounds of weight on the child ... Occasionally more weight may need to be briefly put on a child if the issues the child is working on cause him to become assaultive, and he needs to be physically restrained..." page 101

"If children appear to be particularly frightened about sexual abuse while in my lap, I usually ask them to look into my eyes, and decide whether or not I'm a person who hurts children, or who does sex things to children." page 94

"Generally, children who won't contract to participate in holding or attachment therapy aren't family material, and do much better in a group home or residential treatment facility anyway." page 87

"Remember, a key principle to successfully parent a child with AD is that being successful doesn't mean that the child is getting better, or is changing. It simply means that the parents are having more fun being this child's parents." page 118

Interesting but be cautious
This is an interesting 202-page handbook for those treating or living with attachment disorder children. Randolph breaks the volume into two six-chapter parts, the first on understanding and living with attachment disorder children, the second on research results into the issue. Unfortunately, some of the statements of "fact" in this book seem highly controversial, at best.

Chapter one covers "Attachment Theory and Attachment Disruptions," reviewing the history of the disorder's preliminary discovery in the 13th Century by King Gustav of Sweden, its recognition by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby in a seminal 1944 study and further research into the topic in the 1960s by Mary Ainsworth and others with whom she later collaborated.

The later studies identified the differences in behavioral and psychological health in "securely attached children" from "insecurely attached children." In the 1970s researchers began to consider the effects of maltreatment on attachment styles. These found that children raised in orphanages had more severe problems than those raised in foster care.

In the second essay, Randolph covers "The Impact of Severe Traumatization on Infant Monkeys and Human Children." In 1958, Harry Harlow studied whether infant monkeys attached to their mothers because they provide food, and surprisingly found that the comfort of the infants was more important to them than eating. This was determined by the use of two surrogate mother figures-a wire monkey that provided food and a cloth monkey for comfort. Harlow found that the infants clung to the cloth "mothers," in many cases, to the point of starvation.

Randolph also covers the effects of severe neglect and deprivation on human children, as evidenced by case studies of children from Romanian orphanages, where infants experience no human contact at all except when their diapers are changed three to four times a day.

In monkeys, it was found that early deprivation is extremely difficult to treat, with few if any therapies successfully rehabilitating infants to the point where they are willing and able to establish close attachments to others. While intelligence seems unaffected, most are unable to fully utilize their intelligence to solve problems with which they are presented.

Bruce Perry and his collaborators Bessel van der Kolk and Schwartz found that traumatization has profound neurological, psychological, physiological, developmental, ethical and interpersonal effects on children. Children were more likely to have these effects if the source of their trauma was "man-made" than the result of natural disasters. Positron emission tomography scanning was used to measurethe brain impulses experienced by traumatized and normal children. These found that traumatized children store all their traumatic memories on the right side of the brain, all their positive memories on the left side and are unable to efficiently and effectively coordinate actions that require the use of both brain hemispheres.

Severely traumatized children are also "chronically hyperaroused."

Up to this point, the book is useful and informative. But I begin to have doubts when Randolph notes that, according to Dr. van der Kolk found, children must be allowed to experience intense feelings during therapy, so as to be able to work through the traumatic memories and to be able to provide a different outcome than the original one. According to Randolph, he concludes that "therapists who feel incapable of pushing children to intensify their feelings...so that trauma can be resolved shouldn't work with [traumatized] children, as they will only end up re-traumatizing these children...."

I am unsure if this accurately represents Dr. van der Kolk's findings.

But, I question Randolph's conclusion, based on her assessments of his work, that "Traumatic memories can only be resolved when children are in a high state of high automatic arousal...."

These Attachment Therapy (AT) methods are discussed in chapter 5 of the book. The list Randolph provides list may be a complete roster of attachment treatments available today. But some of them sound like complete quackery.

As Jean Mercer notes in a 2002 online article, "Attachment Therapy: A Treatment without Empirical Support," although death and injury have resulted from AT, it nevertheless has the support of some state agencies in the U.S. While AT practitioners claim that research "supports the effectiveness of their techniques," however, Mercer examined the evidence based on the research design and statistical analysis, and concluded "that AT remains without empirical validation."

Another reason for caution is that the book may be a publication of the Attachment Treatment and Training Institute in Evergreen, Colorado, whose core theories and practices are reportedly at odds with "accepted principles of psychological practice."

--Alyssa A. Lappen ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Children and Youth Services Review, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Population and clinical surveys of the mental health of children in foster, kinship and residential care have failed to account for a range of problems manifested by such children, largely because measurement has been restricted to standard parent-report checklists. These under-researched problems include attachment-related difficulties, anxiety and dissociative responses to trauma, age-inappropriate sexual behavior and self-harm. The Assessment Checklist for Children (ACC) was developed to measure such problems in a prospective epidemiological study of children in long-term care. The ACC is a 120-item carer-report psychiatric rating instrument, measuring behaviors, emotional states, traits, and manners of relating to others, as manifested by children in care. Content was developed systematically, with a view to measuring all clinically significant problems experienced by children in alternate care that are not adequately measured by standard parent-report checklists. Ten clinical and two low self-esteem scales were empirically derived via factor analysis, and labeled: Sexual behavior; pseudomature interpersonal behavior; non-reciprocal interpersonal behavior; indiscriminate interpersonal behavior; insecure interpersonal behavior; anxious-distrustful; abnormal pain response; food maintenance; self-injury; suicide discourse; negative self-image; and low confidence. Initial data indicate that the instrument has good content, construct and criterion-related validity. ... Read more

Product Description
Deborah Hage, MSW shares tremendous wisdom in these 74 pages drawnfrom years as an adoptive parent and as a skilled therapist for emotionally disturbed children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Book!
I have used this book for my own education and also for parent education in helping very young children with attachment and anger problems.It has wonderful, useful ideas- not just theories.However, most of the sellers are listing it for 7 times what it cost to buy it new from [..]

Helping children
Anyone who has adopted a child with emotional problems will find this book helpful. Specific techniques and examples are very usable. The whole tone of this book is very caring, while including proven strategies. ... Read more

Product Description
This book will take you on a journey of discovery and healing through a mothers eyes. It uncovers the truth about childhood trauma, how it affects the mind and spirit, and what is required to repair the broken bonds of attachment and trust. It is a personal tutorial in lessons of heartache and hope, despair and dedication, failures and forgiveness.Understanding, Learning, and finding purpose while raising challenging children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Validates the emotional journey
Love Lessons is Jodi Beans emotional journey in dealing with unmet expectations when the daughter she adopted and wanted to love rejected her at every turn to the point that a mother could think and feel the unthinkable - "I hate my child". There are many mom's who are dealing with children with attachment disorders who feel guilty that they don't love their child. Jodi's book helps trade the guilt and shame for understanding of the impacts of in utero and childhood trauma. Most importantly Jodi's gives us a mom's hope for our kids and the faith to keep trying. She is honest and real and mom's of these tough kids need to know that love can blossom between mother and child.

Found Hope and a Kindred Spirit
I am a mother of two children (siblings) that we adopted through foster care. They were in our home over a year when we decided to adopt them and I was under the assumption that stability, love, routine and structure would help them change some of the behaviors that we had struggled with for over a year. Boy were we wrong! They only got worse and at the point that I got a hold of Jodi's book I was at my wit's end! I had been parenting these children (ages 3 and 5) for 16 months and had been through so much guilt with my own feelings; tried every parenting model in the book and no matter what I did nothing was working.My biological children were suffering, my marriage was suffering and most of all I was beating myself up on a daily basis for the feelings I was having towards these children...mainly why did I dislike them? and why did they call me "Mom" yet treat me worse than the stranger at the door coming to deliver Chinese food?

I read this book cover-to-cover in a day.I appreciated Jodi's candor and the fact that she was willing to put down her raw emotions and experiences in trying to parent a RAD child.I saw myself in her feelings and my children as she described her daughter's erratic, illogical and destructive behaviors.I don't think many mothers, myself included, would have the courage to be as forthcoming about the inability to love and bond with a child.I have felt that way and reading her book freed me up to be able to search for a therapist who could help us.Jodi's book gave me hope that I was not alone in my thinking and I was not crazy to be feeling so helpless and hopeless.

For any parent out there who is struggling with a child with an attachment disorder, this is a great starting place.You won't find methods and answers on how to 'fix them' or what to do in specific situations.What you WILL find is a woman who understands what it's like to want to love a child that has been traumatized and how that love can be painful for a parent, traumatizing to a family, abusive to everyone and in the end provide hope and healing.It saved our lives!

grateful
there are several books available about the clinical diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder, the signs, the therapies etc.... but i have never read a book written by a mother,who has lived with and been heart broken by loving a child who has suffered extreme trauma and is terrified of being loved again. in Love Lessons, i found the understanding, the hope, the encouragement and the courage to continue to do everything i can to help my daughter find peace and feel the love of family. the author never preaches, only supports and validates and offers hope. i am grateful to know there are other mom's out there on the same quest and i stand in admiration of the author's courage in reaching out to other families.

What an incredible story of a mothers love for a child
I felt like this is my story and my life.Thanks for being honest, and thanks for telling your story.It has given us the hope again.We thought we were alone, and now we know that others stuggle with the same issues, feelings and heartache that we have for the past 3 years.

Finding Hope Foundation
The author is a leading figure in "Finding Hope Foundation" [...]
. This organization is a proponent ofAttachment (Holding) Therapy, layperson Nancy Thomas' horrific parenting methods, and use of a bogus, catch-all diagnosis.Any child caught up in this "therapy cult" is likely to be labeled "attachment disordered."All of these practices were denounced as abusive by the American Psychological Association and APSAC in 2006. How anyone could believe this is the way to win the love of a child is beyond me.

Critics of Attachment Therapy include:
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