Attachment Disorder

One of the most challenging conditions encountered in the clinical world is Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), in which the child has not had a chance to bond with a mother figure in early infancy. The behavioral consequences of early childhood abuse are dire, and the consequences of neglect may well be even worse. These problems do not yield readily to psychotherapeutic interventions. They do, however, yield to more physiologically-based remedies such as Neurofeedback and those techniques that aim to calm the mind through the body (somatically-based remedies).

Attachment Disorder may also eventuate if the child's nervous system is not capable of responding to the bonding experience, and this is a key feature of the autism spectrum. A commonality among all of these conditions is that the physiological response needs to be altered in these children. Their primary response to the world is through fear, a thorough-going sense of not being safe. This is not a problem to be solved through talk therapy. The fear response grips the entire body-mind, and it is the body-mind that must be re-educated. This can readily be done with Neurofeedback, and it can be done at any age.

Quick results should be obtained that convince the therapist of the efficacy of the training. However, Neurofeedback may well be required for an extended period of time and over many sessions (>100) before the person exhausts the benefits of the training.