I shifted uncomfortably in my seat when the hospital psychiatrist mentioned RAD as a possible diagnosis for LuLu. Not because I’m afraid of that diagnosis by any means. Instead, it’s because I’ve so totally embraced, researched and lived the stuff for so many years that I suspected RAD was NOT what he was seeing in my child. When I asked him to pinpoint the symptoms that would lead him to that as a possibility, he said, because she was adopted internationally.

This worries me a great deal. Those of us who for years have felt like the voice in the wilderness that “RAD is real” are now wondering if the pendulum is swinging too far the other way. It does our children no good if every professional believes that all adopted children (especially those adopted internationally) have RAD. Admittedly, he didn’t say all internationally adopted children had RAD, just that because she was adopted internationally he suspected it.

As I quizzed him about this, he quickly admitted that trauma was her main problem. I have no idea this doctor’s beliefs of how trauma and RAD intertwine. But I have to say he’s not the only person to equate RAD with international adoption in this wholesale way.

I heard from a family last week who was told by their daughter’s teacher that their daughter had RAD and (teacher said remorsefully) that means she’ll grow up to be a sociopath. Parents were scared and, based on all the teacher had said, hopeless.

It is troublesome when professionals have things half-right. Apparently there has been enough information put into the mainstream of our society for professionals to understand that there is a psychiatric disorder known as Reactive Attachment Disorder and that it is more likely to occur in the adoptive/foster population (or at least more likely to be seen by professionals in this population, since adoptive/foster parents seek help. Parents who are abusing their children and may have been the caregivers to cause the trauma are much less likely to seek the help.)

What’s scary is that’s only half the truth. The other part of the message needs to be that RAD is treatable and that through the right combination of parenting (and parental support), therapies and other resources (like meds, RTCs, etc) the vast majority of children with attachment difficulties from their traumatic pasts get better…much better. Yes their still traumatized children, but they are capable of having relationships.

Even LuLu, with all her problems, is attached. Attachment professionals have recognized this time and again. “She is so much more than RAD,” was the way one put it to us when she was five.

I’ll admit that it feels awkward, as the Director of Marketing for the Attachment & Trauma Network, to write a blog that implies that RAD may be “overmarketed” in some circles.

Being adopted isn’t a disorder. Being traumatized isn’t really either, although there’s a much higher possibility that if you’re available for adoption you have been traumatized. Many professionals even believe the act of placing a child for adoption to be highly traumatizing. But none of this insures you will have RAD – attachment difficulties and fear/trust issues, yes, but RAD…

The problem with half information is that it’s still mis-information. And just like those who say RAD doesn’t exist and all the professionals who treat it are really quacks, it’s equally dangerous to say that it exists in most adopted children and there’s little hope you can change it.

Yikes! What a lot of work ATN still has to do to be heard and heard correctly!

Photo Credit