In our professional and parenting community we are currently gripped by a struggle, labeled accurately a "Paradigm Shift" for our work. Like Copernicus parting with the earth as center of the universe, "paradigm shift" acknowledges the fact that we have embraced a powerful theoretical model, developed over many years, that is now yielding to new information. The ground has shifted underneath our feet. We are struggling to let go of deeply internalized beliefs which explained our work, and did so with some success, for a long time. It is never an easy process.

At the core of this struggle has been confusion about how to understand the behaviors of the children we are challenged to serve, those with Disorders of Attachment and Complex Trauma. A basic belief from the "old model" paradigm concerned the ability of RAD children to make choices between inappropriate and appropriate behaviors. An assumption from this worldview that is now being challenged, is that the answer was frequently, if not always, "won't". This distinction can be a subtle one, especially in the hands-on arena of daily life, far from the lofty world of theory. It offers one approach to defining the paradigm shift and has far reaching implications for parenting and treatment.

This article makes clear several key concepts behind the "paradigm shift" and looks specifically at the attachment/relationship side of the "attachment disorder" coin. Also discussed is the relevant connection between a powerful, research-based intervention, the Circle of Security project, and the children we serve, once this shift is made. A subsequent article will examine the impact this paradigm shift has on our understanding of trauma.

The often catastrophic early histories of the children we serve never allowed for the child to put inside themselves a relationship-based connection of safety to a healthy attachment figure. The lack of this capacity to keep themselves safe, regulated and emotionally organized under the most ordinary of stressors continually disrupts their daily life. Though older chronologically, the paradigm shift now acknowledges that the coping and relationship skills available to them can only be those from the infant-toddler years. Through this more accurate developmental lens the negative, acting-out behaviors of these children are seen as normal coping skills given the level of relationship and safety they have inside. Their destructive behaviors often in fact represent profound states of terror and dis-regulation. In early childhood this overwhelmed state is self evident and plain for all to see. It is the masks and filters that development brings to older children that have served to keep their true state of mind hidden from us.

Object Relations and the "Safety Inside"

Object Relations theory is the psychological model that presents us with the most helpful map for navigating the emotional development of children in their earliest years, those from birth to four or five. Object Relations theory is also nearly impenetrable to understand if you try to read it! At its essence it is really very simple however, and the 'five minute' course in Object Relations goes like this: What Starts Outside, Goes Inside! The skills that we need to grow and become whole human beings start outside of us, we put them inside of us, and we do it through relationship. Object Relations asserts that the skills and activities the parent does for the child end up inside the child, and take the form of a mental representation, a mental image of the parent. All of the important skills we want children to have: self esteem, emotional self regulation, empathy for others, begin outside in someone who does them for and to the child. In the end the child has the capacity to do each of these on their own, independent of the parent. They value and love themselves, organize their emotions, have empathy for self and others.

In normal child development, the most important thing the parent does for the child is to keep them safe, to calm, soothe and repeatedly "be with" them to organize their emotional world. In the language of attachment, the parent is available to "co-regulate" those emotions which quickly become too big for the child alone. It is the parent's sensory-based connection of safety, comfort and warmth which serves to organize the child's emotional world. By five years of age, with the experience of "good enough" parenting, children normally put inside what I call a "platform of safety" that is built of two early relationship skills, those of self-parent Permanence and self-parent Constancy. This "platform of safety" that is strong inside the child means they can negotiate the ordinary stressors of their age without "falling through" the platform into states of overwhelm and dis-regulation.

We understand instinctively however, (given reasonable attachment histories of our own!) that for actual infants, toddlers and preschoolers, the level of relationship and safety that they have inside is very limited, and changes continually with their changing environment. Children this age are regularly "falling through" their own platforms of feeling safe inside, into states of overwhelm. We understand this for young children. What we have not been able to understand until now is that it is this exact same level of relationship and "safety inside" that is available to the older children we serve. This is based on their early histories and the truth of Object Relations: What Starts Outside, Goes Inside. If the safety and connection was never available outside, it is impossible to have it inside.

The Circle of Security: "My Behavior Actually Means That I Need You"

It was after attending several trainings offered by the folks from the Circle of Security Project, that the last pieces of a developmentally consistent, continuum of interventions for attachment disturbances came into place for me. Their gift to us has been to conceptualize the relationship needs of infants and toddlers for the education and understanding of their high risk parents. With the paradigm shift described above, their conceptualizations have direct use for our work, because the relationship skills and level of safety inside our older children are so developmentally similar to those of normal infants and toddlers.

In the language of Circle of Security, the goal they identify for their at-risk parents is that of an "empathic shift" from "negative attribution", the distorted interpretation of the child's behavior, to "understanding the underlying need". This fits the work with our children like a glove. Negative attribution has been for us words like: 'manipulative', 'controlling', 'pushing us away'. From our new developmental perspective, in the language of COS, "my behavior actually means that I need you". This is the underlying need. I need you to organize my emotional world, to 'be with' me, and help me get back to a calm state of mind. Right now these feelings are too big for me alone to handle. Through multiple experiences of this "being with" the child, that mental representation of a safe and available parent goes inside, and with it come the skills of early childhood so important to their success.

Answering The Question: CAN'T versus WON'T

It was not without reason that from the "old model" we often believed the answer to the question regarding their behavior was "won't" behave differently, and not "can't". At one time a child might behave with maturity and on another occasion with destructiveness. We wrongly concluded from the time behavior was appropriate that for the subsequent times it wasn't, it must then be a matter of "won't". We now understand this to be directly related to the moment-to-moment experience of safety and connectedness the child feels. When the connection and thus the safety are lost, then overwhelmed and destructive behavior results. The "paradigm shift" will take time to seek deep roots of its own. The fact that it is experience-near and closer to the developmental truth of the children means improved outcomes must come along with it.

Next Issue: "Advancing the Paradigm Shift: Attachment-Based Resolution of Trauma"

With thanks to Holly Van Gulden for her pioneering work.