Reactive Attachment Disorder (DSD)

Reactive Attachment Disorder or just in general attachment disorders, has a typical onset seen before the age of 5. The disorder normally originates in the stage of infancy. As the child reaches their preschool and school-age years, the serious effects of the disruption in attachment relationships start to present themselves and manifest. As the child reaches the stage of adolescent and then through adulthood, the forms of the disorder are more commonly seen in the relationships that the person develops. These relationships often are surrounded by mistrust and the ability of building a supportive, intimate, and sensitive relationship is often lacking. Children who are diagnosed with RAD develop a severe impairment in their value system due
to the inability to build healthy relationships and connect with others. Caregivers are seen as distrustful and not valued by the child, thus the child may be uncomfortable with affection and more than likely rejecting it. The child also is not motivated by common rewards for modeling positive behaviors. With such an impairment in their value system, they display severe behavioral issues. Rules and laws become obsolete to them and thus do not even try to control their impulses before breaking these rules or laws, as well as seeing the world in a view that they can just take and do what they want.
To these children, their behavior is logical and have the attitude that “No-one cared about me, so why should I care about anyone?”. (Fernandez, 2015)The question that then comes into consideration when exploring the disorders of RAD and DSED is how these specific attachment disorders develop during childhood. Starting as an infant, our environmental background is crucial to the way we develop. In cases of children diagnosed with RAD or DSED, the environment that they reside in is one that is considered to be seriously adverse and neglectful caregiving. These environments may be one containing physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, parental alcoholism, parental drug use, parental mental illness (i.e. maternal depression), and absence of a consistent primary caregiver such as the child being institutionalized/orphanage, foster care, maternal/paternal incarceration, and parental abandonment (Hornor, 2008). With DSED specifically, many of these children have been subjected to multiple foster homes or have lived with different caregivers causing for multiple disruptions in their attachment
relationships. At the end of the first year of life, attachment typically occurs in the form of stranger and separation anxiety. When there is secure attachment with a primary caregiver, the child is able to have their needs met such as comfort, guidance, support, nurturance, and protection. This allows for the child to develop a sense of self and others that ultimately will guide how they respond emotionally and behaviorally and their interpersonal competence. When the above risk factors are presented into a child’s life at the critical time of brain development, the child forms an unhealthy sense of attachment thus leading to further implications in their adult life. According to the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, RAD has been found to have enduring effects on the HPA Axis of the body system, which is responsible for regulating the body’s response to stress and balancing/conveying the neurochemical information in the sympathetic nervous system. The journal also indicated that RAD also has implications of effecting the memory and the formation causing the brain to be unable to calm itself and to be able to access the information stored in the memory structures to be able to consciously reflect and think before acting.