Attachment Therapy on Trial

The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker

Jean Mercer, Larry Sarner, Linda Rosa

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9780275976750
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780313057168
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Candace Newmaker was an adopted girl whose mother felt the child suffered from an emotional disorder that prevented loving attachment. The mother sought attachment therapy—a fringe form of psychotherapy—for the child and was present at her death by suffocation during that therapy. This text examines the beliefs of the girl's mother and the unlicensed therapists, showing that the death, though unintentional, was a logical outcome of this form of treatment.

The authors explain legal factors that make it difficult to ban attachment therapy, despite its significant dangers. Much of the text's material is drawn from court testimony from the therapists' trial, and from 11 hours of videotape made while Candace was forcibly held beneath a blanket by several adults during the therapy. This book also presents history connecting attachment therapy to century-old fringe treatments, explaining why they may appeal to an unsophisticated public. This book will appeal to general readers, such as parents and adoption educators, as well as to scholars and students in clinical psychology, child psychiatry, and social work.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Series Foreword by Hiram E. Fitzgerald and Susanne Ayres Denham
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Attachment Therapy and Its Victims
• Part I The Case of Candace Newmaker
• Part II The Facts Behind Candace’s Case: Realities of Emotional Development and Childhood Mental Illness
• Part III Preventing More Cases Like Candace’s: Problems and Some Possible Solutions
• Conclusion Lawsuits and Legislation: Where Do We Go from Here?