While we can go back and forth on whether "attachment disorder" really exists, the dialectical behavior therapy is decisively NOT marketed as "attachment therapy" (AT), and if Dr. Lineman were asked if she were an attachment therapist, she'd probably say hell no.
First of all, it's Marsha Linehan. IIRC, DBT is a psychosocial treatment that was developed primarily as a treatment for BPD (borderline personality disorder). I have heard of it being used for children with an attachment disorder, as well, though I have no idea what Linehan's position on that would be.
from her website:
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy at a Glance
In the late 1970s, Marsha M. Linehan (1993) attempted to apply standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to the problems of adult women with histories of chronic suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, urges to self-harm, and self-mutilation. Trained as a behaviorist, she was interested in treating discrete behaviors; however, through consultation with colleagues, she concluded that she was treating women who met criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the late 1970s, CBT had gained prominence as an effective psychotherapy for a range of serious problems. Linehan was keenly interested in investigating whether or not it would prove helpful for individuals whose suicidality was in response to extremely painful problems. As she and her research team applied standard CBT, they encountered numerous problems with its use. Three were particularly troublesome:
1. Clients receiving CBT found the unrelenting focus on change inherent to CBT invalidating. Clients responded by withdrawing from treatment, by becoming angry, or by vacillating between the two. This resulted in a high drop out rate. And, obviously, if clients do not attend treatment, they cannot benefit from treatment.
2. Clients unintentionally positively reinforced their therapists for ineffective treatment while punishing their therapists for effective therapy. In other words, therapists were unwittingly under the control of consequences outside their awareness, just as all humans are. For example, the research team noticed through its review of audio taped sessions that therapists would “back offâ€
