Trial Ends - 2 therapists convicted
- Rebirthing team sentenced to 16 years - June 19, 2001
- Rebirthing team convicted - April 21, 2001
Two therapists face mandatory terms of 16 to 48 years in jail. Two Evergreen therapists
sobbed as they were led to jail in
handcuffs Friday night after a jury found
them guilty in the rebirthing death of
10-year-old Candace Newmaker.
An emotional Jefferson County District
Court jury took about five hours to
convict Connell Watkins and Julie
Ponder of child abuse resulting in death.
-
Rocky Mountain News
An entire section of the October 29, 2000 issue of the Rocky Mountain News was devoted to a special
investigation into the "rebirthing" death of Candace Newmaker. RMN
journalists located Candace's biological family and notified them of her
death. More information emerges to the public about the sadistic nature of
"rebirthing" and "therapeutic holding" practices inflicted on kids
diagnosed with the dubious "Attachment Disorder."
Full story: Her Name Was Candace
Side story -- Therapist has strong defenders:Photos:
Background stories
Who killed David Polreis?
- Terrible Two - WestWord - Oct. 10, 1996 -
Renee Polreis and her adopted son had a
miserable life together--until someone put an end
to it. By Karen Bowers
Emergency-room doctors said the boy was cut and bruised over
90 percent of his body. According to the autopsy report, the boy
was beaten so badly that he threw up and choked on his own
vomit, cutting off oxygen to his brain. A second pathologist, after
reviewing the autopsy report, says the boy suffered what
amounted to "abject torture."
- A Deep Attachment WestWord - March 13, 1997
A New Mexico couple grieves for David Polreis,
the prospective son they never got to meet.
- Psychological Warfare - WestWord - March 27, 1997
The defense loses a key battle over attachment
disorder for the upcoming Polreis toddler-death
trial.
- Little Boy Lost - WestWord - May 22, 1997
Accused murderer Renee Polreis pulls out all the
stops in a pre-trial hearing
-
Attachment Center
testifies as to its theories in criminal case:
David Polreis Jr. - A dead child, a troubling defense - 1997
Renee Polreis says her son was fatefully scarred by his infancy in a
Russian orphanage. Prosecutors say she killed him.
Northern Colorado is the nation's center for the treatment of attachment
disorder. Norton himself trained with Dr. Foster Cline of
the Attachment Center
at Evergreen, the most well-known purveyor of attachment
disorder diagnoses
and therapies. According to statements given to police by
Polreis's friends,
Norton told her that David's chances of developing a
happy bond with the
family were slight and that he might well be dangerous
and grow up to be a
criminal like serial killer Ted Bundy.
In the attachment
disorder support group
Polreis joined, she heard parents tell how they locked
their bedroom doors
each night, fearing for their lives. Polreis talked of
being so afraid of her son,
friends reported to police investigators, that she feared
that "if she ever started
hitting David, she would not stop."
The brutal nature of holding therapy was tragically proved last January,
when
Donald Lee Tibbets, 37, a nurse from Midvale, Utah, was
sentenced to up to
five years in prison for the July 1996 murder of his
3-year-old adopted
daughter, Krystal. He killed her using the therapy to
cure her attachment
disorder, said to have been caused by abuse in her
biological home and
frequent moves to different foster homes. The therapy, he
testified, involved
pinning the 35-pound girl to the ground with his body and
pressing his fist into
her abdomen to evoke and release her pent-up rage. Even
when another foster
child told Tibbets that Krystal was turning blue and
"looked dead," he
continued. Defense Attorney Ed Brass told the court that
Tibbets had been
taught that the child's loss of consciousness was normal
"dissociation" and that
she would revive; she died "because Tibbets loved her so
much and believed so
much in the therapy." He also noted that holding therapy
had been
recommended by the Utah Division of Family Services when
Krystal was
adopted.
Therapy or child abuse?
- Rage reduction therapy: help or abuse?- CNN review of Texas doctor tied to Colorado therapist
Rage reduction therapists believe that angry, misbehaving children
will realize why they're so hostile if a therapist holds them down
and talks to them.
District Judge Ken Curry of Tarrant County, Texas ruled that her
psychiatrist had committed assault, battery, and intentional infliction
of emotional distress. He ordered Dr. Robert Gross to pay more
than $8.4 million in damages.
Many rage therapists follow the teachings of psychiatrist Foster
Cline, a pioneer of rage reduction therapy who has been
admonished by the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners
for giving treatments involving pain and verbal abuse.
-
What does the APA have to say about "attachment disorder"? - When children don’t bond with parents
Psychologists are providing a controversial treatment for reactive attachment disorder. I can't find any other links or even warnings anywhere in the APA web site, can you?
|
|
