Trauma’s lasting aftershock: misunderstood emotional disability

No one is immune from the pain of loss and abandonment. A beloved figure’s death, a betrayal of trust, or abuse can inflict a degree of pain that is seriously traumatic. Those suffering such trauma may react with mistrust and depression, becoming unwilling or unable to reach out to others or accept attention and love. Their learning potential and life performance are impaired and their ability to develop stable relationships is disrupted: this is Attachment Disability.

Unfortunately, contemporary psychiatry minimizes the significance of trauma, leaving many attachment-disabled people misdiagnosed, mismanaged, and enduring unnecessary suffering.

In Attachment Disability, Dr. John Curran, a psychiatrist with decades of private and institutional practice, demonstrates that emotional disability is always trauma related. He draws on professional literature and dozens of case studies to define three types of Attachment Disability: Avoidant, Entangled, and Acting-out. He persuasively advocates a psychiatric management style that avoids making things worse and helps people in pain clarify and accept their trauma and then focus on what they can change.

Dr. Curran concludes with suggestions on how American psychiatry can be invigorated by clearly distinguishing between mental illness and the emotional disability it generates.

Attachment Disability offers an invaluable contribution to the psychiatric profession and the people it seeks to serve.

I wish I had this book thirty years ago; I would have made it required reading for every therapist on my staff.

–Richard Obershaw, AMW, MSW, LICSW; author of the best-selling Cry Until You Laugh: Comforting Guidance for Coping with Grief