When Pseudoscience Kills

Quite a few people take comfort in various pseudoscientific beliefs; in fact, one of the defenses of pseudoscience is that it is comforting and doesn’t do any real harm. That, however, is a serious error - pseudoscience isn’t merely harmful but can, in fact, kill people who accept it uncritically.

Scientific American reports on the case of 10-year-old Candace Newmaker who was treated for “attachment disorder”:

Candace was treated by Connell Watkins, a nationally prominent attachment therapist and past clinical director for the Attachment Center at Evergreen (ACE) in Colorado, and her associate Julie Ponder. ... Watkins and Ponder conducted more than four days of "holding therapies." On one day they grabbed or covered Candace's face 138 times, shook or bounced her head 392 times and shouted into her face 133 times. When these actions failed to break her, they put the 68-pound Candace inside a flannel sheet and covered her with sofa pillows, while several adults (with a combined weight of nearly 700 pounds) lay on top of her so that she could be "reborn." Ponder is reported to have told the girl to imagine that she was "a teeny little baby" in the womb, commanding her to "come out head first." In response, Candace screamed, "I can't breathe, I can't do it! ... Somebody's on top of me.... I want to die now! Please! Air!"

According to AT, Candace's reaction was a sign of her emotional resistance, calling for more confrontation to achieve emotional healing. ACE (now operating as the Institute for Attachment and Child Development) claims that "confrontation is sometimes necessary to break through a child's defenses and reach the hurting child within." Putting theory into practice, Ponder admonished, "You're gonna die." The girl begged: "Please, please, I can't breathe." She then vomited and cried, "I gotta poop." Ponder instructed the others to "press more on top," on the premise that such children exaggerate their distress. Her mother entreated, "I know it's hard, but I'm waiting for you."

After 40 minutes of struggling, Candace went silent. Ponder rebuked her: "Quitter, quitter!" Someone joked about performing a C-section, while Ponder patted a dog that meandered by. After 30 minutes of silence, Watkins remarked, "Let's look at this twerp and see what's going on. Is there a kid in there somewhere? There you are lying in your own vomit. Aren't you tired?"

Candace wasn't tired; she was dead.

Candace wasn’t the first child to die through the use of the utter nonsense that goes under the name “attachment therapy.” There is no evidence that it does an good, but lots of evidence that it hurts or kills. Nevertheless, people with no training in real science or critical thinking continue to use it. Is anyone surprised? In a world where religion thrives, the existence of “attachment therapy” is only to be expected. It certainly doesn’t kill any more often than religion does.

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