Attachment Disorder

The symptoms

Every child is different and probably will not display all the symptoms; but the majority are likely to be there in varying degrees.

Attachment disordered children try to avoid intimacy and control close relationships, using mixtures of threatening, angry or menacing behaviour on the one hand and seductive, charming or paranoid behaviour on the other.

Whatever their symptoms, the one thing most of them have is angry and and worn-out parents. As Sheila Fearnley, of the Keys Attachment Centre in Lancashire says: "On first meeting, children typically present as fleetingly charming. In contrast, parents appear distraught."

Many of their symptoms are similar to children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and there is active debate about the relationship, overlap and diagnostic distinctions between children with attachment disorder who have a history of maltreatment and children with ADHD.

Many professional now believe that ADHD is being over-diagnosed and that many of these children actually have attachment disorder.

The symptoms of attachment disorder are:

Social problems

  • Difficulty making eye contact
  • Poor peer relations
  • Extreme need for control
  • Speech oddities including incessant chatter/nonsensical questions,

    Emotional problems

  • Lack of conscience and empathy
  • Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers, grandiosity
  • Inappropriately demanding or clingy
  • Out of touch with own feelings
  • Lack of lack of ability to genuinely give and receive affection
  • Resentment
  • Temper tantrums that last several hours

    Behavioural problems

  • High levels of anger, rage and even violence towards carers, particularly mothers (adopters, foster carers)
  • Self-destructive behaviour
  • Oppositional behaviour
  • Constant blaming of others
  • Poor impulse control
  • Restlessness; constant need for stimulation and activity that often leads to anti-social behaviour
  • Children act as if their new carers (particularly adoptive and foster mothers) were responsible for their past abuse and hurt, which is puzzling and hurtful for carers
  • Coercive, demanding behaviour
  • Obvious lying; manipulative lying to get what they want
  • Early sexual activity; sexual acting out
  • Stealing
  • Preoccupation with fire, blood, gore, and weapons, often expressed in violent drawings fire setting
  • Cruelty to animals
  • High breakage rate of toys and objects; tendency to trash rooms when in a temper.

    Developmental problems

  • Lacks cause and effect thinking
  • Poor sense of danger
  • Abnormal eating patterns (gorging, stealing food, hoarding, refusing to eat, particularly in presence of other family members). These eating problems reflect early failures of nurturing and repeated experiences of hunger and physical neglect.
  • Lack of conscience and moral sensibilities
  • Self-neglect; poor personal hygiene; urinating in inappropriate places.

    Attachment disorder is renowned for being difficult to treat and is often the reason why adoptions or foster placements break down.

    But one UK centre that is having a degree of success in helping these children is the Keys Attachment Centre in Lancashire.

    To find out more click here


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