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Used in the treatment of attachment disorder, is believed to occur when an infant is unable to connect with a caregiver in the early months and years of life. This lack of connection impacts the child on a physiological, emotional, cognitive, and social level, and often keeps the child from forming genuine relationships with others. If the person is still a child, practitioners of this therapy believe that the child’s resistance to attachment must be broken down before a healthy parent-child relationship can be established. Therapists use various physical and sometimes coercive approaches to achieve these ends, including holding therapy in which a child is physically restrained by therapist and/or parent, and rebirthing, in which the child is placed in a sheet or blanket held forcibly closed by several adults and forced to “break out” of the constricted environment as if coming out of a womb. Less coercive, physical approaches encourage a child to vent anger or rage at his/her parents. Although this therapy has been in use for over thirty years, it has come under intense scrutiny due to the deaths of children while undergoing the process.
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