Chewing Off the Hand: Demonizing Nathaniel Craver

The Virginia psychologist Ronald Federici has found a new and scary way to blame adopted children for their own injuries. Commenting on the death of a western Pennsylvania boy who had been adopted from Russia, he has referred to another child who “chewed off his own hand” and to children with no sense of pain (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102004021.html and many other Internet sites). Federici and the defense attorneys for the adoptive parents, Michael and Nanette Craver, argued that the child, re-named Nathaniel, had injured himself fatally. An Associated Press article stated the Cravers’ argument that Nathaniel had suffered from Reactive Attachment Disorder, which, according to the article, “includes a tendency to injure oneself. “

Let’s consider each of these statements. Is it possible for someone to chew off his hand or to feel no pain? Individuals with the genetic disorder Lesch-Nyhan syndrome do chew off their lips and tongues as well as having movement and other problems. Schizophrenic patients have been known to gouge out their own eyes or break off teeth. And there are genetic disorders in which people unfortunately have no sense of pain and accidentally injure themselves as a result, for instance by failing to notice they are touching a hot stove until they smell burning flesh. Individuals with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) lose sensitivity in affected body parts and injure themselves by accident.

In all these situations, the sufferer shows many behavioral and physical symptoms in addition to self-mutilation or frequent accidental injuries. And, it’s clear, none of these problems is caused by adoption, although there’s a minute chance that a child adopted in infancy could have a disorder that is not yet noticeable. By the time any child reached Nathaniel’s age, seven years, ordinary observation and well-child care would have detected a set of problems that were not limited to self-injury, and which don’t seem to be mentioned at the trial . So, when the irrelevant statement about hand-chewing is brought into the discussion of Nathaniel’s death , our response should be, “what do the two things have to do with each other?” In my opinion, the purpose of this scary example is simply to distract attention from the real evidence about the events that led to this boy’s death. The “he did it himself” defense has been seen before in these cases; it was claimed that 2-year-old David Polreis beat himself to death with a wooden spoon, and even the very public videotaped death of Candace Newmaker was claimed by some to have been a deliberate act on the child’s part, for the purpose of punishing her therapists.

To continue the analysis: Is there any truth whatsoever to the statement that Reactive Attachment Disorder involves “a tendency to injure oneself”? Reactive Attachment Disorder is, of course, described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. But, no, no such behavior as self-injury is linked with RAD in DSM volumes of any vintage, nor is any such change predicted for DSM-V. This is proof by assertion at work. The Cravers and their attorney have made this statement without the slightest foundation in evidence, which they get to do in their efforts to be acquitted; it’s now up to the prosecution to ask the questions that will reveal that there is no truth to the statement, and the jury to pay attention to the facts.

In an interview with the Harrisburg Patriot-News , Federici also stated that Reactive Attachment Disorder is only a symptom “of a much larger and deeper disturbance”. This statement, like the previous one, would come as a considerable surprise to the committees that work hard to revise DSM periodically. While it’s presumably true that any behaviors, desirable or undesirable, are indications of underlying characteristics, it’s further proof by assertion and further distracting scare tactics to claim that the symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder indicate a nameless badness beyond DSM’s ken.

Let’s resist these attempts to depict Nathaniel as a demonic child, one of a group of terrifying, inhuman children who mutilate themselves horribly and cause unfair accusations of their loving caregivers. Let’s focus instead on the reality of this child’s life and the likelihood that he injured and malnourished himself.

And let’s hope the jury focuses on those issues, too.