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If you're not familiar with the whole RAD scam, please do NOT get your info from RadKids.org -- it's part of the problem. Beware of any therapist who has given a "RAD" diagnosis or any parent who has accepted such a diagnosis and is following a therapist's treatment recommendations without the full and ongoing approval of an MD currently board-certified in psychiatry.

"RAD" is a favorite label among dangerously crazy therapists, including the one who helped an adoptive mother smother her 10 year old daughter (Candace Newmaker) to death during a "therapy" session in which she was rolled up in a blanket and forced to struggle to get out as a "rebirthing" experience, and the one who directed a Utah couple to use "forced water drinking" as therapy, which ended up killing the adopted 4 year girl (Cassandra Killpack).

From Cassandra's story: Prosecutors say the Killpacks disciplined Cassandra by forcing her to drink at least 2.5 liters of water June 9, 2002, as punishment for stealing her younger sister's juice. In taped interviews, the couple's 7-year-old daughter, Nicole Killpack, told police her parents had forced Cassandra to drink at least four large glasses of water as punishment for "sneaking" her younger sister's Kool-Aid or juice. After tying Cassandra's arms behind her back, Jennete Killpack poured glass after glass of water down the girl's throat until she fell off a bar stool and hit her head, Nicole said. When Richard Killpack came home from church meetings, he assisted his wife in what they considered therapy. Cassandra was forced to run around the house and stand in a corner until she vomited, Nicole said. Cassandra fell unconscious soon after. State Chief Medical Examiner Todd Grey testified at a preliminary hearing in 2003 that the girl's death resulted from her blood-sodium level dropping precipitously and a subsequent fatal brain swelling. He said Cassandra also had water in her lungs that came from the forced water drinking or breathing in her own vomit. . . . Jenny Gwilliam, a licensed clinical social worker and co-owner of the Cascade Center, testified she diagnosed Cassandra as having a severe case of reactive attachment disorder -- that she failed to bond with her adopted parents.

Gee, if a kid won't "bond" with parents who would be willing to things like that, she must have a "disorder", right?

All these "therapies" are aimed at children who don't want to be dependent on or trusting of the adults they're living with. The plan is to terrify and traumatize them to the point where they'll be so desperate for help that they'll start looking to the only person available for it. In most cases, the problem is with the parents, not the child, and the child is acting on very good instincts not to trust people who would buy into these sketchy diagnoses and therapies. Quackwatch has a good summary of the whole cultish industry: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/at.html

Note that the RadKid.org site is promoting Nancy Thomas as a reliable expert. This site http://www.childrenintherapy.org/proponents/thomas.html exposes what Thomas is really about (including the fact that she was affiliated with the therapy practice, Connell Watkins & Associates, that killed Candace Newmaker, at the same time Candace was killed, and has advocated the forced water drinking therapy that killed Cassandra Killpack and other children). A sample of her advice:

-- "I have had instances where a kid is so out of control that they refuse to stay. When that happens, I will sit on the child. I have had to do this with dogs as well, and they are generally more dangerous with their teeth and claws than children. … I pick a good book and read while I sit on a child and that really seems to upset them because they feel that I should be miserable like they are."

-- She also believes in the thoroughly debunked tales of secret Satanic cults: "I had one little boy who was in a ritualistic cult. … He had been a cannibal and had taken part in the rituals. He knew how to worship Satan, full blown."

-- On "rage reduction therapy": "In rage reduction therapy, the person doing the holding is the person in control and he is the aggressor. He holds the child and provokes the child into a rage on purpose."

RadKids.org also promotes Daniel Hughes. This page from the same site http://www.childrenintherapy.org/proponents/hughes.html provides selections from Hughes' books and writings.

-- Re "holding therapy": "The therapist … gradually moves the child into the emotional spheres of terror, rage, and despair that the child wants to avoid. … She directs therapy in ways that the child would never choose to do. … the child reluctantly gives up control."

-- While a terrified child is being restrained this way by a crazed adult "therapist", Hughes advises: "the therapist directs him to recall and reexperience significant memories from his abusive and neglectful past, he is likely to feel intense rage, terror, and despair that will often be focused on the therapist." (keep in mind these may be sexual abuse experiences, which the child is being forced to relate to the crazed adult who is forcibly holding him/her close to the adult's body)

-- Perhaps most chillingly: "I am indebted to Connell Watkins, Deborah Hage, Foster Cline … for many of these concepts." That line was from a book he published in 1997. Watkins was the "therapist" who personally led the April 2000 "rebirthing" session in which Candace Newmaker was murdered, and personally held Candace down inside the blanket while she suffocated to death. At the trial, details of the session came out: "In a voice filled with panic, Candace repeatedly screamed that she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and couldn’t find the way out. Her struggle was so intense that she kicked a 31-inch tear in the sheet with her stocking feet. In time her protests got weaker and eventually only labored and irregular breathing could be heard from her. Fifty minutes into the session, Candace went completely quiet. The therapists taunted her with “quitter, quitter, quitter” and sat on top of her for another twenty minutes before unwrapping the sheet. Candace was discovered blue and lifeless. " That was Watkins herself, shouting "quitter, quitter" to a child she had just killed. Nice folks Hughes is indebted for his ideas.

There's lots, lots more.