Foster Cline was a pioneer in working with disturbed children. Last year I interviewed Foster and Russ Colburn and described their collective perspectives of how things have changed over the years. Foster will volunteer that he thinks some people in the attachment/adoption community view him more as a liability than an asset these days. I never have understood that. Foster would be the first to acknowledge that attachment therapy has evolved significantly since the early 1970’s when he worked with Zaslow and did “Z therapy”. The cardiac surgeons don’t feel a need to dismiss or downplay the evolution of heart surgery or heart transplants, or the implantation of a baboon heart into a child. Why must the attachment community turn their head away in shame over techniques that were used nearly 40 years ago? You do what you know to do at the time! Sure, things have changed, and absolutely, they have changed for the better. But I for one am deeply appreciative of all the knowledge Foster Cline and Russ Colburn contributed.


As I mentioned in this post, one of my favorite older references is Hope for High Risk and Rage-filled Children. While there is some information in there that is clearly outdated and doesn’t reflect the approaches of today, there are some interesting ideas and food for thought. For instance …


Foster asks:

Who is abusive? Let’s say it like it is …


What compounds the fact that the use of therapeutic intrusive techniques appears very disturbing, is the fact that many therapists are disturbed individuals themselves. Also, some people who go into child abuse as a vocation are abusive to the abusers as an avocation.


Thus, in the case of intrusive therapies, there are individuals in protective services who wonder if those who conduct the therapy aren’t posing as helpful professionals, while in reality they are disturbed themselves. In addition, those therapists who work with abused children using intrusive techniques feel abused by disturbed people posing as child protective professionals! A confusing situation it is, for there are actually four types of individuals involved with the disturbed.

Before I go any farther, I need to clarify some things. First of all, there are some awesome therapists out there and I will expound upon that fact and how to identify those folks shortly. Secondly, there are some awesome social workers out there too, and they need acknowledgment for their efforts as well. Thirdly, today’s “intrusive techniques” are no where near as intrusive as they used to be, but some folks consider it intrusive to do anything against what a child specifically agrees to do … the word coercive being a significant pivot point. So as I interpret what Foster is saying in terms of today’s therapeutic approaches, I read it to mean any time someone in social services decides some therapeutic parenting technique is coercive or intrusive upon a child’s individual rights. So is it intruding upon a child’s inherent rights to feed them a peanut butter sandwich for dinner if everyone else is having pizza? I think not. But of course it is intrusive to cage them. Common sense is called for here.


I will get to the four categories in the next post.