The logic of “rebirthing therapy” is simple, advocates argue: children form their first and most lasting attachment to their parents in the instants just after birth. But if a child is adopted, he may never form that emotional link; if the child is abused, the link can be severed. Re-creating the birth is supposed to produce that magical bond, whose absence can put a child atrisk for depression, antisocial behavior and even violence. A holdover from the 1960s, when practitioners claimed that it could treat adults with a wide range of psychological problems, rebirthing and other attachment therapies have made a comeback by riding the wave of adoptions of foreign children, many of whose psyches are scarred from years in understaffed orphanages.
Attachment disorder is an officially recognized psychiatric illness, most often resulting from abuse at a young age. Treatment for it, however, remains controversial. Many researchers doubt that the typical 10 three-hour sessions, which often include holding a child and even bottle-feeding her, will create emotional bonds. Worse, “people are doing whatever they want and calling themselves attachment therapists,” says Terry Levy, co-director of an attachment center in Evergreen. There are anecdotes galore, but no scientific evidence that rebirthing helps children form emotional bonds. Rebirthing “is akin to witchcraft,” says psychologist Ronald Federici, who treats troubled adoptees from Eastern Europe. “It makes no psychological or neurological sense.” Supporters of the four therapists call them well-meaning, and Candace’s death a tragedy, not a crime. “We don’t think anyone should be charged,” says Dan Edwards, Watkins’s attorney. The courts will decide if he’s right.
