In His Own Words

• His current outpatient practice is located in Colorado Springs and consists almost entirely of working with parents and children with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Dr. Buenning also speaks nationally on bonding and attachment. Through his teaching of parents, he transforms the heart and soul of each child and creates a new life for families.

  — “About Dr Buenning” (accessed July 2004)

• RAD is detectable early in infancy.

  — “Bonding and Attachment,” Chosen Child International Adoption Magazine,
  December 1999/January 2000, 2(3):.

• I often talked that way [“This is not rocket science”] to parents who are about to adopt, because in Colorado, they have to do now, by law, a certain number of hours of training. And a part of that training has to do with abuse and neglect. And a part of that training has to deal with Attachment Disorder. And I’ll talk to them about the fact that, given my experience in the last ten years, I think I can identify an Attachment Disorder in an infant in a matter of 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants,”
  ATTACh Conference (Pittsburgh, PA, Sep 2003)

• In the last eight years, I have worked with the parents of babies and toddlers who had problems bonding. Through this work, I developed a 27 item Infant Attachment Checklist. … A diagnosis of RAD can be made in an infant with only several items checked in a positive direction.

  — “Attachment Symptoms” (2001, accessed July 2004)

• Information taken from the parents is usually more valid than a clinician’s perception of the child. This is true because the child with RAD has the capacity to manipulate and fake “looking good.”

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• I started it about ten years ago. And I treat other children, but every time I get a chance to treat a baby or toddler, I do it. Because you get a chance to be successful in a hurry. … And you make a difference. And the difference seems to go straight to the child’s soul. And it seems to last. … And so, since that time, I’ve probably treated 60 to 80 babies and three or four times as many toddlers. And I use pretty much the same process with both, though it gets more complex as the children get older.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• Based on my clinical experience, my estimation is that it [failure to bond to adoptive mother] occurs in 10-30% of infants adopted at birth. … There is no doubt in my mind, however, that a percentage of infants adopted at birth actively and spontaneously resist accepting their adoptive parent’s love.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• With effective attachment therapy parents will not have to wait years to see significant changes in their child. Generally, it takes several months for even the most effective attachment therapy to be successful. However, therapy with infants and toddlers can produce significant changes within several weeks.

  — “Treatment Philosophy” (accessed July 2004)

• Dr. Buenning treats children from early infancy well into their teenage years. … The success rate is nearly 100% with infants, 90% or more with toddlers, and 50% or greater with children 5 years of age and older.

  — “About Dr Buenning (2004)”

• Many of the parents I work with are conservative Christian in Colorado Springs.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• Try to determine if there is a growing emotional connection between you and your baby. Is there a relationship of love, trust, and reciprocity developing? This is evidenced by eye contact and imitative or reciprocal behavior.

  — “Attachment Symptoms” (2001)

• Probably only five percent of the babies I work with have that chronically fussy quality. And the name I have for it is like they have “emotional colic.”

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• Children with RAD have problems developing a conscience.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• All children with RAD have control issues. … The child with RAD is oppositional, argumentative, disobedient or often defiant. They are exceedingly strong-willed and will go to great extremes to be in charge.

  — “Attachment Symptoms” (2001)

• And what you’ll see is, if the mom gets away with putting the baby in her arms and feeding — you know these children almost have insect-like eyes, in the sense that they can rotate those little eyes to make damn sure they don’t have any part of mom in their views. So that when you feed them, they will roll their eyes and look out. They’ll look up. They’ll look down. Won’t [look at] mom.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• Often the child with RAD hides his problems from the outside world. Consequently, adults such as teachers and relatives often see the child as normal or as a “great kid.” Meanwhile, the child is very symptomatic at home, especially with his mother. In some extreme cases, the child even hides his symptoms from the father, displaying them only to his mother when the two of them are alone.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• Then the flat affect, too quiet … “Rarely cries.” Overly good baby. Or overly independent play. Makes no demands. Those three symptoms capture the overly good baby. … So that overly-good baby, not needing anything, not demanding anything, can be a pretty happy child. But sometimes they have this real sad look, and that makes them stand out a little more. But it’s when they look good and happy and make no demands that they can trick you into thinking, “well, things are going along pretty well here.” … if you look at their face, the first blush is “pretty good baby.” But if you start staring — if you stare long enough — there’s almost a second face behind them. So, it’s mainly in their eyes that I see it. That there’s a sadness or a maturity or a concernedness that is striking or captivating.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• … [I]f you delay gratification to an attached baby — diaper, hunger, whatever — I mean the crying will get louder, louder, louder. Then eventually they’ll get to that rageful state. But the RAD baby goes straight to the rageful state.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• RAD children are almost always intensely angry children. If therapy is effective, it will constructively address the child’s anger. One therapeutic goal is to reduce the child’s anger. When it works, this is a sign of success. Hence, the label Rage Reduction Therapy was fitting. Present attachment therapies, however, address a broader range of emotions, including intense fear and sadness. All attachment therapy of which I am aware has an emphasis on addressing the child’s troubling emotions versus being only a cognitive or behavioral approach.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• If love were food, RAD would be equal to anorexia.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• … if you, if you impose affection on [the un]attached, you will … take them into the core of the hurricane. You’ll take them to the core of their trauma. … Now what happens is trauma turns the baby upside down. What the baby needs, the baby no longer wants. And what the baby wants, the baby no longer needs. And you can use those two concepts as kind of a diagnostic tool for health.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• And so what happens is this dramatic thing that most people wouldn’t realize, and that is, at one day of age, as a baby, if my birth mom leaves me, if I’ve had a horrible birth experience, if I’ve had horrible prenatal, in utero experience, if I’m born premature — somewhere very early — what I need — love, touch, hugs, dependency on mom, closeness to mom — I don’t want that. And what I want is I want to be alone in my crib, and I want to feed myself ASAP — is the opposite of what I need.

  — “Diagnosis and Treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorders in Infants” (2003)

• Every baby who becomes available for adoption has experienced some trauma. The most common trauma they can experience is the loss of their relationship to their birth mother. … Over the past ten to twenty years, there has been growing evidence that a strong or significant bond exists at birth between the infant and his birth mother. This bond develops during the nine-month period the child was inside his mother.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• Attachment therapy should teach you consequential parenting skills. These skills will help you regain control of your child as well as create a bond with him. … Attachment therapy should teach you how to use holding for nurturing as well as for control. Holding is controversial both inside and outside the professional community. … As more clinicians have used holding with RAD children, the therapy has been refined and redefined. As a result, a diversity of interventions exists among professionals using this modality. They all have the same label, namely Holding Therapy. While there are common threads, a wide variety of therapeutic activities now take place within the definition of Attachment or Holding Therapy.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• The therapy teaches parents to provide a whole person healing experience for the child. The healing experience will correct the hurtful lessons learned from early trauma that are now in the RAD child’s heart, body, soul, and mind. By contrast, talk therapy is simply not powerful enough and does not engage the child’s whole person.

  — “Treatment Philosophy” (2004)

• The therapy needs to be confrontive. The RAD child cannot be given the choice of facing or talking about his problems. … This makes the therapy unpleasant and difficult for the child. Until he has made significant progress in bonding to his parents, the child will usually detest the therapy.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)

• When your child becomes bonded, changes will take place spontaneously. Changes in emotions, behaviors, attitudes and thinking will happen automatically.

  — “Bonding and Attachment” (1999)