Candace Newmaker - Attachment Therapy

Attachment Therapy

See also: Attachment therapy and Reactive attachment disorder

Candace and Jeane Newmaker traveled to Evergreen, Colorado in April, 2000, for a $7,000 two-week "intensive" session of Attachment Therapy with Connell Watkins, upon a referral from a licensed psychologist in North Carolina.

Candace died during the second week of the intensive with Watkins during what has been called a "rebirthing" session. Participating in the fatal session as therapists were Watkins and Julie Ponder, along with Candace's "therapeutic foster parents", Brita St Clair and Jack McDaniel, and Jeane Newmaker.

Following the script for that day's treatment, Candace was wrapped in a flannel sheet to simulate a womb and told to extricate herself from it, with the apparent expectation that the experience would help her "attach" to her adoptive mother. Four of the adults used their hands, feet, and large pillows to resist all her attempts to free herself, while she complained, pleaded, and even screamed for help and air. Candace stated several times during the session that she was dying, to which Ponder responded, "You want to die? OK, then die. Go ahead, die right now". Twenty minutes into the session, Candace had vomited and excreted inside of the sheet; she was nonetheless kept restrained.

Forty minutes into the session, Jeane asked Candace "Baby, do you want to be born?" Candace faintly responded "no"; this would ultimately be her last word. To this, Ponder replied, "Quitter, quitter, quitter, quitter! Quit, quit, quit, quit. She's a quitter!". Jeane Newmaker, who said later she felt rejected by Candace's inability to be reborn, was asked by Watkins to leave the room, in order that Candace would not "pick up on (Jeane's) sorrow". Soon thereafter, Watkins requested the same of McDaniel and Brita St. Clair, leaving only herself and Ponder in the room with Candace. After talking for five minutes, the two unwrapped Candace and found that she was motionless, blue on the fingertips and lips, and not breathing. Upon seeing this, Watkins declared, "Oh there she is, she's sleeping in her vomit." Whereupon the mother, who had been watching on a monitor in another room, rushed into the room, remarked on Candace's color, and began CPR while Watkins called 9-1-1. When paramedics arrived ten minutes later, McDaniel told them that Candace had been left alone for five minutes during a rebirthing session and was not breathing. The paramedics surmised that Candace had been unconscious and possibly not breathing for some time. Paramedics were able to restore the girl's pulse and she was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Denver; she was declared brain-dead the next day, the consequence of asphyxia.

The entire 70 minutes of the fatal session, as well as ten hours of other sessions from the preceding days, had been videotaped as a matter of course with Watkins's treatment. All the videos were shown at the trial of Watkins and Ponder.