Reactive Attachment Disorder

Reactive Attachment Disorder, or RAD, is a condition wherein the person afflicted with it has problems forming intimate, lasting and loving relationships. While Reactive Attachment Disorders can vary in severity, however, the term generally refers to people who display almost a complete lack of the ability of being affectionate towards other people. Typically, they are not successful at developing a conscience and do not have the ability to trust others. Reactive attachment disorder usually starts before a child is 5 years of age, which results due to being pathogenically neglected during the first 3 years of the child’s life.

What are the Causes of Reactive Attachment Disorder?

Given below are some of the conditions that make a child susceptible to developing Reactive Attachment Disorder, with the crucial period being from when the child is in the womb up to about 26 months of age.

• The ambivalence of the mother toward her pregnancy.
• The child being suddenly separated from his/her primary caregiver, which could be due to the death or illness of the mother or the child being suddenly ill or hospitalized.
• The child being abused sexually, emotionally, or physically.
• The child being moved or placed in foster care, or failed adoptions, frequently.
• Children being under the care of mothers who are unprepared and have inadequate parenting skills.
• Inadequate or inconsistent day care.
• Trauma during birth.
• Being predisposed to it genetically.
• Pathological neglect of the child.
• Traumatic experience in the womb, such as being exposed to drugs or alcohol in-utero.

Many children afflicted with Reactive Attachment Disorder have been ignored or traumatized as well as neglected by their own parents, foster parents, or due to being moved constantly within the system of foster care, and by sexual, emotional and physical abuse. Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder therefore learn very early that the world is an unsafe place, and thus develop a protective shell around their feelings as a means of isolating themselves from the painful experience of dependency and attachment towards their caregivers.

Since the child becomes dependent on this protective shell as his/her sole means of surviving and coping with the world, it is very difficult to remove it. Essentially, the devise a method of becoming providers of their own self-protection, and they view anybody trying to remove this protective shell as a threat. This results in them turning against the very people who are trying to help them – the caregivers.

Basically, children who are afflicted with Reactive Attachment Disorder lose the ability to trust others. This is because one can only trust the people who care for us if we love them, and these children have experienced that whenever they have loved and have trusted, they have been hurt deeply. Hence, they develop a method wherein they deal with relationships on their own terms, to protect themselves against being hurt again. Basically they try and control everything and everyone around them. They do not allow anybody to get past the protective barriers they create around themselves, until they prove that they are truly worth their trust.

This lack of trust makes them seem as if they lack conscience. They become so self-reliant, that the needs of others get ignored, to the extent that they can destroy, damage, and steal whenever they feel any hindrance to their sense of control. Basically, they have trouble trusting anybody in authority or caregiver.

The Problem Areas displayed by Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder

• They are incapable of forming attachments, forming relationships only based on need, with no regard or very little of it, towards one caregiver or another.
• They display signs of developmental backwardness, wherein they have problems with conceptual thinking, or ‘cause and effect’ kind of thinking.
• They exhibit a lack of controlling their impulses, and are disruptive and/or aggressive.
• Behavioral problems in school along with learning difficulties.
• They display symptoms of depression and low self esteem.
• One of the most disturbing aspects of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder is their complete lack of remorse. These children want to be in control, and do not let themselves be parented.

What is the Treatment for Reactive Attachment Disorder?

Most children in the foster care system do display attachment problems, with only a few of them actually being diagnosed as having Reactive Attachment Disorder. Attachment is a behavior that is learned. Children who are diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder require special counseling in order to be able to overcome it, and usually also need psychiatric or residential care.

The treatment for Reactive Attention Disorder is basically focused on the caregiver. Counseling is generally used to deal with the issues that are having an effect on the caregiver’s behavior towards and relationship with the child. Attachment and an improvement in the relationship with the child can also be developed by teaching parenting skills. Play therapy is also often used as a form of treatment. This method helps the caregiver and the child give expression to their needs, fears and thoughts in the safety of the play context.