Treating Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)…

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)? Reactive Attachment Disorder is a mental health disorder in which a child does not have his/her basic needs for affection, nurturing and comfort met. As a result, loving and caring attachments with others are not developed.

Adolescents that suffer from RAD have the false belief that they are not capable of being loved. They will seem charming and helpless to outsiders, while waging a campaign of terror within the family. Adolescents with RAD manipulate strangers with charm and even inappropriate affection, but react aggressively as soon as an adult gets too close emotionally. Among people who know them well, these individuals pick and choose whom they will love in order to show their control of the situation.

Adolescents with RAD will often chat incessantly in an attempt to control the classroom in which they are falling farther and farther behind. In addition, an unattached child typically has poor hygiene. These behaviors make the youth stand apart from his peers who now want nothing to do with him; reinforcing his belief that he is not capable of being loved. These individuals seem to lack any remorse for their actions, and they are often fascinated with anything that repulses or shocks people in authority. They may lie (about the only time they will look you in the eye), cheat and steal without a second thought. When confronted about this behavior, they will make quite a scene in an intense battle for control.

Reactive Attachment Disorder is a lifelong condition, but with treatment adolescents can develop more stable and healthy relationships with caregivers and others. Safe and proven treatments for Reactive Attachment Disorder include psychological counseling and parent or caregiver education.

Triumph Youth Services offers a small, highly structured family environment for youth. This family-like community promotes a social environment that takes on both therapeutic and healing properties instead of maintaining negative behaviors.

Triumph Youth Services provides a daily Life Skills Group. The goal of our Life Skills Group training program is to teach the student a new set of responses to social situations, as well as how to integrate his behavior with others in the environment. Our staff members are trained and encouraged to be effective leaders by serving as teachers or coaches who hold the young men responsible for working on problems and to act as limit setters and good listeners. In addition to modeling appropriate behavior, our staff members help students with RAD to recognize appropriate interactions with others which help solidify proper interpersonal relationships. You can click here to learn some more about RAD..

The clinicians at Triumph Youth Services are highly trained and have extensive experience working with adolescent youth. They specialize in working with adolescents with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Our clinicians are licensed and approved as mental health professionals to provide individual, group and family therapy. Students with RAD are highly challenging, but with the proper environment and supervision they can become productive members of their families and society.

We believe that here is hope and happiness in the future for our Students.