Developmental psychology
Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby, focuses on the importance of open, intimate, emotionally meaningful relationships. Attachment is described as a biological system or powerful survival impulse that evolved to ensure the survival of the infant. A child who is threatened or stressed will move toward caregivers who create a sense of physical, emotional and psychological safety for the individual. Attachment feeds on body contact and familiarity. Later Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation protocol and the concept of the secure base.
Attachment therapy
The practice of holding therapy is not confined to the US. Prior and Glaser cite at least one clinic in the UK. Attachment therapists from the USA have conducted conferences in the UK. The British Association for Adoption and Fostering, (BAAF), has issued an extensive position statement on the subject which covers not only physical coercion but also the underlying theoretical principles. It had been thought, until recently, that therapists calling themselves "attachment therapists" practising in the UK tended to be practising conventional forms of psychotherapy based on attachment theory. In 2009 The British Journal of Social Work accepted an article rehabilitating holding therapy, "To Have and to Hold: Questions about a Therapeutic Service for Children" describing an earlier study involving the Keys Attachment Centre in Rossendale, Lancashire and the surrounding Keys Attachment Homes. In 2012, first-hand accounts from a survivor and a number of professionals provided evidence that the coercive Evergreen model of holding therapy had been systematically used to treat children in Local Authority care within a programme in North West England.