Beth Thomas Case Study

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What is your immediate reaction to Beth Thomas' experience/behaviors at the beginning of the video? I was struck the severity of Beth's disorder. Beth not only exhibited behaviors indicating an inability to form emotional attachments to other people, she was actively attempting to harm other people. During her one of her early interviews with her therapist, in reference to her brother, Beth stated, " [I want to] kill him, because I was hurt so bad and I don't want to be around people." It appears that the severity of Beth's behaviors may have been caused by her exposure to various types of abuse. Likewise, severe neglect is thought to be the leading environmental factor that causes Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD); however, Beth not …show more content…

The immediate benefits of the residential treatment not only led to the protection of her brother, but provided Beth with a controlled and structured environment where she could being to earn and cultivate trust between her and the people around her. It was evident that the residential treatment, coupled with the therapy that Beth had been receiving was making a difference in her life. She demonstrated remarkable improvement. For instance, Beth began to exhibit some feelings of sorrow and remorse over her past behaviors. She cried when she acknowledge that by acting the way that she did, she not only hurt her family members, but also hurt herself. By the end of the video, she had earned a substantial amount of trust. She went from sleeping by herself with alarms on the door and locked into her room, to sleeping in the same room as other children. She started engaging in activities. Instead of attacking and killing animals, she began to feed and nurture them. Despite her many improvements, the documentary clearly expressed that for Beth, full recovery would likely be a lifetime …show more content…

I would be remiss to fully affirm the treatment philosophy ascribed in this video, due to the sample size being only one person. However, the treatment plan for Beth seemed logical and effective. One of the goals of treatment was to build Beth's self-esteem and to allow her to realize that she had worth and value. Prior to participating in residential treatment, Beth had come to believe that she was inherently bad. One of Beth's therapist went on state, "a child that is unattached does not trust and believes that they're evil and not a person of value." As part of therapy, Beth was given strict boundaries to slowly build trust between her and others. Additionally, she was slowly given responsibility and tasks, and was rewarded by encouragement when she did a good job. Consequently, she built self esteem, and thus learned to view herself as a person of worth. Additionally, she was shown affection and love and began to respond to affection. Through on-going therapy, Beth began to develop her own sense of conscience and began to feel bad about the harm she caused to herself and others. Thus, it appears as though the treatment course explored in the video was an effective intervention straights that may be helpful to other individuals with this Reactive Attachment

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