Psychological Trauma & Post Trauma Therapy:

Part 1: Attachment Failures and Dorothy Allison as a Client
One of the more significant aspects of social development is the formation of attachment. For many, the first occurrence of attachment is during infancy with a caregiver (typically the mother). For Dorothy Allison, we can assume that from her book she had a positive attachment to her mother beginning at infancy. Granted her mother worked and was a single parent, however it this cannot be discredited because Allison’s needs as an infant were met (e.g. her mother seemed present and did not abandon her baby or harm the baby, baby was fed/clothed). According to the actual story, Allison’s abuse began at a much younger age than in the retelling—regardless, sexually and physically abused at a young age, Allison watched her mother stand by her attacker. For a moment, we have to pause and just consider what torment this child experienced. We can then assume Allison was questioning her own self-worth, blaming herself, and stuck between wanting to love her mother and possibly hating her mother all at the same time. As a young child, Allison’s attachment to her mother was shattered; her primary caregiver failed her. Allison’s other caregivers were present, but the one adult whom she had formed a close bond with passes away, leaving her again without a caregiver or a responsible adult figure. Working with Allison as an adult, I would start by evaluating if she was suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder in Early Childhood to help get a baseline of where she is coming from. I picked this based on criteria C: “persistent disregard of the child’s basic emotional needs for comfort, stimulation, and affection” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 130). However, criteria A would need further investigation to determine if there was an