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Moving on through the article, the prerequisite mentioning of “children dying” because of attachment therapy makes its appearance. No article negating the validity of attachment therapy would be complete without this point. Yes, I know bad things have happened. Yes, I know a FEW therapists—a VERY few as far as I know—made bad choices that had grave consequences. And yes, I know that a FEW parents have taken what therapists have said and twisted it around and misused it. But I am incredibly tired of hearing how many zillions of kids have died at the hands of “maverick” attachment therapists or “overzealous” parents. But that’s just me… or is it?
I absolutely do not want to give the impression that I diminish the tragedy of children dying in any misused form of therapy or treatment. A botched heart surgery or a surgeon under the influence is as devastating and potentially preventable as the few documented cases of misused attachment therapy. There are always going to be people in any profession or discipline who make poor choices or step way too far out of the box. BUT… sometimes stepping out of the box is exactly what moves science forward. So, go for it, you pioneers, but be darn sure you do it perfectly from the very beginning and make NO mistakes. No doubt Dr. DeBakey, the famous pioneering heart surgeon, saved every patient from the get-go and never made one wrong turn. (Obviously he was well-educated, well-certified and well-credentialed… and I do understand the difference between that and a therapist who is less “regulated” for lack of a better term… But he still stepped well outside the box, and I have little doubt that some of his colleagues gave him a very hard time for it.)
Sometime after the first of the year, I am hopefully traveling to Indianapolis for a state-of-the-art endoscopic procedure to correct my reflux problem. The doctor doing the procedure has done it twenty times. Not 220, or 2020, only twenty times. He happens to be a lifelong friend of mine… and I trust him explicitly. He has my best interests at heart… and he is very knowledgeable and very good at what he does. But he hasn’t done thousands of these procedures. It is still very much a new option and he is one of a handful of docs in the country allowed to do this while it is still in this phase of clinical testing. So should I wait? Or have a more invasive but “known quantity” procedure that has potentially MORE side effects and no more efficacy? Or shall I “step outside the box” and go with something not totally scientifically documented?
More coming…
“But I am incredibly tired of hearing how many zillions of kids have died at the hands of “maverick” attachment therapists or “overzealous” parents.”
Me too, me too. Just like I’m sick and tired of hearing foster parent horror stories whenever someone hears that we are foster parents. People seem to always want to hear the worst.