Treatments for Reactive Attachment Disorder

Reviews the book, Attachment Disorders: Treatment Strategies for Traumatized Children by Catherine Swanson Cain (see record 2006-05296-000), stating that Cain states in her foreword that the book is aimed at social workers, therapists, parents, educators, and other readers who are probably not experts in research design or evaluation. Given her audience, researchers might view the book as both a valuable resource and a potentially frightening accessory to child harm. The first six chapters are extremely impressive in that Cain reviews research from diverse subfields and combines it all into an easily readable introduction to the complex field of developmental psychopathology. She seamlessly brings together attachment theory, the latest research in neuroscience, and social influences on developmental psychopathology. However, Chapters 7 through 9 are troubling, to say the least. Cain provides the very brief and somewhat vague Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) diagnostic criteria for reactive attachment disorder (RAD). The reviewer highly recommends the first six chapters of this book for educators, social workers, students, and others working with traumatized children. They give a clear developmental picture of how children develop trauma reactions. However, the reviewer is not convinced that the book is really about children with RAD. Much of what the book covers can be true for children who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, or oppositional defiant disorder, among others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)