"Helping Children, In spite of Ourselves"

By Aurore Adamkiewicz, ND

Well, Many of you know that I take a completely different stand about autism-because my son used to be autistic and is now completely healed. I have found that this information about my son being healed, alone, gains me many enemies and few friends. Initially when I started trying to help autistic children, I felt like I was sitting on the "biggest secret" and information that would help children and Mothers heal and open up. But, sadly, two years into my quest to help and enlighten people, I have been treated very cruelly, completely misunderstood, and have roused anger and contempt on myself. I now feel like I have hit the same wall as I had 13 years ago at the oncology clinic with cancer patients. A part of me just wants to give up in this area, being consistently attacked has worn me down. Let me explain my latest endeavor.....

A friend of mine of 12 years posted to a local web group of 50 people that she had spanked her two year old and was feeling guilty. I posted a simple response to her that I also went through a very angry and guilty period of Motherhood and that the Holding therapy as prescribed by Dr. Margaret Welch in her book "Holding Time" taught me to reach out to my children in love when they act up and not hit them or reject them by sending them to their rooms. I offered to loan the book out to my friend and I also offered to go over the first holding session with her as a courtesy. My post was literally about five sentences long-and what that simple post unleashed was a wrath and of defensive hatred by Mothers that I could not have anticipated.

First of all, a woman on that group with an autistic child posted that there is nothing wrong with spanking and that her autistic son "needs" to be spanked in order to come back to "center". Then she sent no less then ten extra posts specifically attacking what I wrote. In one post she said that she tried the holding therapy by Dr. Welch and that she did it correctly and that it was cruel and mean and that her son "hates to be held" by his Mother (?) I could see this woman was very distraught and so, I sought to calm the situation by posting one reply in response to her ten. A short response where I agreed with her and told her that a Mother holding her child in anger feels the same as a Mother spanking her child and not only will the child view it as such but it causes confusion in the Mother/child bond. Essentially making the point that if you don't want to love your child and reach out to them-then don't force yourself and you cannot trick your children.

Well, after those posts, I received an email from the moderator telling me not to post about my business and to take my debate with this woman off group. I also received an apology from the woman that was enraged. I reassured her that I was not offended and that her response was a typical response that anyone would have when faced with new information. This woman and I emailed each other back and forth for about two weeks, in a kind and friendly manner. Finally, last Friday I received an invitation to meet this woman out for a drink...and so I agreed. (Can you hear the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth?!)

When I arrived at the pub I found the enraged woman we will call her "Sue" sitting at a table in the corner with my friend of 12 years. Upon sitting down and introducing mysefl, Sue started to share that she lost her virginity at three from her Mom's relative and she declared that she has no anger in her body anywhere regarding this situation. At this point I was ready to leave-knowing that her disconnected feelings of early child abuse would make any conversation with her challenged at best. I then learned that more people were coming from the web group and so I decided to wait to meet them face to face before I left.

My friend of 12 years left when the other women arrived, one of the new women announced that she also had an autistic son and also worked with autistic children as a medical assistant (I found out later that this was Sue's sister!!). Immediately, she sat down and accused me of trying to push my views on others. She also told me that my child was never autistic, and hers was..and that there is no cure for autism. Well, in this type of fatalistic dialog-there is no use going any further because there is no belief in "healing" so why bother discussing one ? I told her this type of belief system will set up a life long dependence on drugs and treatments to hide or repress the symptoms for the ultimate comfort of the individual, I am not saying that this belief system is "wrong or evil" but it is indeed a product of living in a society that has lost hope in health.

At this time both women informed me children had died from "being held" from"RAD" therapy and forced autistic compressions (?) I informed these women that RAD therapy had nothing to do with Dr. Welches work. I now realized that we were all, obviously, not talking about the same thing and in that way-it was a "non-debate."

I finally left these women at 12 midnight in a totally different mindset, I had been set up and the kind hearted communication that the woman Sue and I exchanged was in fact superficial on her part-affected me tremendously. I came there to show I would not contract in the face of adversity and to put disagreements behind us, what I realized was that these women were stewing in anger for two weeks and were more than happy to use me as a punching bag rather than a platform for change and healing. More than that-I have a policy of not befriending sisters-like most family circles, people will protect eachothers illnesses and sicknesses and at the same time back bite and abuse eachother through a third party.

In Regards to Autism and rebonding, I can only say that I still believe in Dr. Welch's work-as strongly as ever, and it has never been about anger and violence but truth, love, safety and eye-contact. If you are someone who has been under the assumption that holding your child is wrong, or could hurt your child-I invite you to look at Dr. Welches work, individually, and do not view it in light of other doctors who got a hold of a similar idea and like anything they "in-doctor-nated it" and changed it, and made something as beautiful as a Mother holding her child a cruel and unnatural process that can hurt children. This is the same "in -doctor-nation" that they have done to women in childbirth and breastfeeding. I invite you to read my book "Beyond Natural Cures" where I present the entire story of my autistic son and I, Reich's book "Children of the Future", "Saharasia" by Dr. James DeMeo which outlines our lengthy disconnection from Motherhood over the last 3,000 years and our recent attempt to get it back. I also welcome you to click on the link below to read an article that compares Holding Time to RAD therapy.