Quick note about the Beth Thomas story: from what I got from some quick research, the therapy regimen she was put through wasn’t just controversial, it was absolutely harrowing and unsafe, and Beth was one of only two (!!) patients that reported being happy with it. Among the controversies, was the death of 10-yo Candace Newmaker during a “rebirthing” exercise.
I think it’s tempting to find a narrative in there, like maybe the attachment therapy was only good for extreme cases and was harmful to people who only needed compassion and verbal therapy, but I think the simpler explanation is that these people had no idea what they were doing, Beth just got lucky, and the average child sexual abuse survivor would have been traumatized by attachment therapy.
I don’t think there’s a grand lesson here. Helping child abuse survivors is hard.
Quick note about the Beth Thomas story: from what I got from some quick research, the therapy regimen she was put through wasn’t just controversial, it was absolutely harrowing and unsafe, and Beth was one of only two (!!) patients that reported being happy with it. Among the controversies, was the death of 10-yo Candace Newmaker during a “rebirthing” exercise.
I think it’s tempting to find a narrative in there, like maybe the attachment therapy was only good for extreme cases and was harmful to people who only needed compassion and verbal therapy, but I think the simpler explanation is that these people had no idea what they were doing, Beth just got lucky, and the average child sexual abuse survivor would have been traumatized by attachment therapy.
I don’t think there’s a grand lesson here. Helping child abuse survivors is hard.