Sam is a fourteen-year-old boy who had experienced a tremendous amount of trauma as a young boy.  He was finally placed into foster care at the age of seven.  By this time, Sam had been severely damaged.  He was very untrusting of adults.  Sam was very aggressive toward others, had been caught stealing on numerous occasions and had a history of fire starting.  Sam also demonstrated some inappropriate sexual behaviors.  Sam had a difficult time receiving healthy nurture from others.  He was unable to remain in his first foster home.  He eventually was placed in a wonderful foster home and was adopted.  Even though Sam wanted to be adopted, he continued to struggle emotionally and behaviorally.  He remained controlling, sneaky, and manipulative at home.  He rarely accepted positive reinforcement or nurturing words and touch from his parents.  He verbalized his confusion over loyalty to his birth family or adoptive family.  He continued to start fires.

Eventually, he was placed in residential care due to the safety risks to Sam and his family. Mom and Dad refused to give up on Sam.  They decided to participate in the Attachment Therapy program through Lutheran Social Services in an attempt to decrease Sam’s difficult behaviors, help him receive love, bring him out of residential care, and keep him in the family permanently. Therapy began while Sam was in residential treatment.  Therapy was designed to address the underlying traumas that keep Sam in a constant fear state.  Another major goal of therapy was to help Sam experience value, love, and self-worth to counter Sam’s faulty beliefs that he was the cause of the problems in his life and his birth family’s life.  

Sam was able to receive nurturing from his parents within the context of therapy.  Mom and Dad also learned new parenting ideas to better deal with Sam’s challenging behaviors. Sam was recently transitioned from his residential placement back to his family home.  The family was together for the holidays.  In the past, holiday celebrations had triggered Sam’s bad behaviors.  This resulted in ruined holiday celebrations for the whole family.  This year, Sam remained calm during the holidays.  More importantly, he remained safe and emotionally connected to the family.  Sam has a long way to go in healing from the numerous traumas in his early life, but returning home after a year in residential treatment is a major success.