Confessions of a Quackbuster

This blog deals with healthcare consumer protection, and is therefore about quackery, healthfraud, chiropractic, and other forms of so-Called "Alternative" Medicine (sCAM).

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Attachment Therapy News: Oct. 5, 2005

*** AT NEWS ***

Attachment Therapy Parenting Cited at Murder Trial

Get an *Amazing* Sample of AT Parenting Yourself

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THE STORY:

The trial of Utah residents Richard and Jennete Killpack for the death of their adopted Black daughter is in its third week. Using Attachment Therapy parenting methods, the Killpacks used forced gorging to train five-year-old Cassandra not to sneak sips of juice. On one occasion, after an estimated one to two gallons was forced down Cassandra's throat, the girl's brain swelled and she died.

Testimony this week revealed that Jennete employed Nancy Thomas parenting methods and that these were later okayed by therapists at Orem's Cascade Center for Family Growth -- an Attachment Therapy (AT) center where little Cassandra was enduring a "two-week intensive" (Attachment Therapy) at the time of her demise. Thomas and Cascade have been mutually supportive over the last five years.

AT and "AT Parenting" work hand-in-glove to take AT into the home, immersing children in a 24/7 environment of pseudoscientific concepts and unvalidated treatment. AT Parenting techniques are taught to lay people (respite workers, adoptive and foster parents) and are based largely on deprivation, humiliation, isolation, and excessive chores, excessive exercise and hours of sitting motionless. "Therapeutic foster parents" employing AT parenting have been known to earn over $80,000/year.

Nancy Thomas is currently the foremost popularizer of AT parenting methods. This one-time dog groomer on the western slope of Colorado, with no professional or academic credentials, has parlayed her experience with Foster Cline, Connell Watkins, Daniel Hughes, and other Attachment Therapists into a worldwide business of books, videos, seminars, and lecture tours on how to recognize and deal with "dangerous," "attachment disordered" children.

Advocates for Children in Therapy (ACT) has gleaned some representative statements from the publicly available writings and utterances of Nancy Thomas. Because of the likelihood that many vulnerable parents may encounter her, we have put them on a webpage so that the public can see the essence of what Thomas promotes:

http://www.childrenintherapy.org/proponents/thomas.html

These direct quotes are by no means all that we found that is disturbing.

And for more information on the Killpack case:
http://www.childrenintherapy.org/victims/killpack.html

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*AT NEWS* sends the latest news/opinions to activists and allied organizations about the many abusive, pseudoscientific, and violent practices inflicted on children by the fringe psychotherapy known as Attachment Therapy, aka "holding therapy" and "therapeutic parenting." Attachment Therapists claim to work with our nation's most vulnerable of children, e.g. minority children, children in foster care, and adoptees. AT NEWS is the publication of *Advocates for Children in Therapy.* For more information on Attachment Therapy and a film clip demonstrating AT, go to the Utah activists' site at http://www.kidscomefirst.info and ACT's website: http://www.childrenintherapy.org.

Contact: Linda Rosa, RN
Executive Director
Advocates for Children in Therapy
Loveland, CO
rosa@ezlink.com






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