Coercive holding therapy and rebirthing-attachment therapy

Domain XVI · Historical, discredited & harmful · Robert Zaslow, Foster Cline · 1970 · Evergreen, Colorado

What it is

Coercive holding therapy and rebirthing-attachment therapy are a family of practices, not a single therapy, promoted mainly for adopted and fostered children labelled as having "attachment disorder". Proponents held that a child who had been maltreated or moved between carers carried suppressed…

Format

• April 2000: a ten-year-old adopted girl from North Carolina died of asphyxiation after a videotaped "rebirthing" session in Colorado run by Watkins and Ponder.
• 2001: both therapists were convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death and each sentenced to 16 years, the minimum term. Colorado passed a 2001 law "Concerning a Prohibition on the Therapeutic Technique Known as Rebirthing" (Session Laws 2001, ch. 129); North Carolina later banned…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• 2002 to 2008: in Utah, a four-year-old adopted girl died in 2002 after her adoptive parents forced water on her as a punishment; her adoptive mother was convicted of child abuse homicide in 2005 and the Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2008; her lawyer said she had followed professionals' advice. Utah licensing officials later ordered the state's last known holding-therapy practitioner to stop.
• 2006 onward: the APSAC Task Force (Chaffin et al. 2006) rejected coercive and restraining approaches and recommended interventions that increase caregiver sensitivity; AACAP (2016) revised its practice parameter for reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and disinhibited social engagement disorder; NICE NG26 (2015) set out supported interventions for UK children in or on the edge of care.
• Advocacy and follow-up. Goal: reporting colleagues or programmes to regulators, support with legal routes, and connecting with supported services. Session number and length follow the client's needs and the setting; NICE NG26 gives session formats only for its own recommended interventions.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• plans that quietly reintroduce isolation or withholding.
• escalation around anniversaries, court cases or media coverage.
• identity confusion and anger at adoptive carers; hold both loyalty and anger.
• guilt that becomes withdrawal from the child, or denial that leads back to coercive practice.
• pressure on the child to say it is "fine"; repair is shown over time, not in one conversation.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.