Abstract From Maia's Szalavitz's book

[ZenAgent]

Looks like it's going to be good.  This was in my ICSA update, and I noticed ICSA has more articles than I've seen in the past on teens/psychology and the rampant abuse.  Thank you, Phil Elberg!

Also, thank you, Maia.  That was a great piece on Scheff's gaming of the media.  Excellent writing, and I need to find a copy of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog.

What really stuck in my mind after reading this excerpt was how quickly the American public forgot the Davidian kids.  I remember watching a news program interview with a little Davidian girl no more than seven years-old.  She described how Koresh had explained the proper way to kill herself with a pistol, demonstrating with her finger.  Not straight into your mouth, she said, but with the barrel pointing toward the roof of your mouth, to be sure it kills you.
 
Another group of kids I've wondered about are the Manson Family kids - there were many of them, allegedly involved in the drug-taking and family orgies.  

Are Americans ashamed of the troubled kids they've created? Too many parents place their kids in programs not for their actions, but to protect the family's "social standing" in the community.  Based on my own experience, I saw my honor roll girl snatched away without due process and put in PV not for what she had done, but for what she might possibly do.  And yeah, the bio-parent who pulled that stunt is highly concerned with his non-existent, delusional perception of himself as a "pillar of the community".   Why do our kids suffer for their parents' mental problems, like the parent I mentioned above who victimized his own flesh and blood to maintain  his over-the-top Megalomania, alcoholism, and Delusions of Grandeur?  

Abstract

Stairway to Heaven: Treating Children in the Crosshairs of Trauma

Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D.

Maia Szalavitz



This article discusses the experiences, observations, and conclusions of Dr. Bruce Perry’s child trauma team, which was asked to help 21 children, ranging in age from 5 months to 12 years, who had been released from David Koresh’s compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.  Children were in constant fear of physical attacks, public humiliation, and outsiders, i.e., the “Babylonians.â€

[Rude Intrusion]

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog.

Its a good book. I would recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in child development and the effects of trauma, and effective therapies for the traumatized child.

Its not overly clinical. Anyone who reads can easily understand it. The various accounts are all written in a warm hearted, yet professional manner. With one exception, I would say the primary message of the various cases described, is one of great hope.