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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attachment therapy | 9/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_therapy | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:17:08.228014+00:00 | kb-cron |
They also considered the lack of available and suitable interventions from mainstream professionals as essential to the popularization of holding therapy as an attachment therapy. In 2003, an issue of Attachment & Human Development was devoted to the subject of attachment therapy with articles by well-known experts in the field of attachment. Attachment researchers and authors condemned holding therapy as empirically unfounded, theoretically flawed and clinically unethical. It has also been described as potentially abusive and a pseudoscientific intervention, not based on attachment theory or research, that has resulted in tragic outcomes for children including at least six documented child fatalities. In 2006, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) Task Force reported on the subjects of attachment therapy, reactive attachment disorder, and attachment problems and laid down guidelines for the future diagnosis and treatment of attachment disorders. The APSAC Task Force was largely critical of Attachment Therapy's theoretical base, practices, claims to an evidence base, non-specific symptoms lists published on the internet, claims that traditional treatments do not work and dire predictions for the future of children who do not receive attachment therapy. "Although focused primarily on specific attachment therapy techniques, the controversy also extends to the theories, diagnoses, diagnostic practices, beliefs, and social group norms supporting these techniques, and to the patient recruitment and advertising practices used by their proponents." In 2007, Scott Lilienfeld included holding therapy as one of the potentially harmful therapies (PHT's) at level 1 in his Psychological Science review. Describing it as "unfortunately" referred to as "attachment therapy", Mary Dozier and Michael Rutter consider it critical to differentiate it from treatments derived from attachment theory. A mistaken association between attachment therapy and attachment theory may have resulted in a relatively unenthusiastic view towards the latter among some practitioners despite its relatively profound lines of research in the field of socioemotional development.