Dr. Cathy Ayoub
speaker
148 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Dr. Cathy Ayoub’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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The more protection they can get, I think, and really being able to be seen as well, identified if they do have an illness for the real extent of that illness, And then, but again, mostly it's having family. And I think families need to be supported by the system. What I mean by that is in the situations where we saw successful reunification, and I have to say, I was very skeptical.
And I think that's the reason that the court kept me involved to provide oversight in these few cases for eight years. Because it was like, these kids can't go home unless this is a safe place and a healthy place. But in those situations, I really, the whole system came together to support this family. There were paternal grandparents who took the children.
There was a father in each of the cases, these were two parent families, but the fathers kind of were like, oh my gosh, I can't stay with you unless you get treatment. And I do need to protect my children. Although that was hard for them. A lot of the fathers have what I call they have on blinders.
You know, the Mack truck is coming down the road and they're standing in the middle of it and they don't see it. So helping the father see what's going on is also a critical part of treatment because they then have the tools to be able to then protect the child. But extended family is also critical. And oftentimes extended family is split, which is another real problem.
And then having good caregivers. And I think these cases need to stay in the courts. That's the only way we had successful treatment. And I've had other cases that I've asked to stay in the juvenile court system because the mothers were so dangerous.
I mean, the young man that I mentioned at 17, who actually was in residential treatment because of his psychiatric problems, he had a guardian ad litem appointed by the court. And the juvenile court judge kept the case open so that he could make sure that this young man was fine 10 years after he was abused and removed from his mother. And that guardian ad litem worked with him for 10 years.
And he is now living outside of a psychiatric institution. He's doing fairly well. He has a good job. And he still sees his guardian ad litem. He's now 27 or 28. But he literally, at 18... His mother was on the, and I'm talking very literally, was on the doorstep. I'm here to see you. I love you. And thank goodness there was a restraining order.
And he agreed to continue to have his guardian ad litem actually appointed to help him with guardianship through 21. Wow. So, I mean, that may be an extreme, but we have to, as a society, come and provide these supports for. And in other cases, it's been critical in divorce court for these fathers to have the ability to go back to court and say she's doing it again. You know, I need some help.
And I think that's a really good question. You know, I think... I believe because of what I understand about trauma and what I've studied about trauma is that when you hold less than truths, it's very difficult to then take a look at the kind of dysfunctional ways you have adapted to everyday life. You have to really acknowledge this is who I am. This is why I feel this way.
And my guess is that there are critical periods in our lives. And they vary for a lot of us, but some of them are. When we decide to build a relationship with another adult, when we have children, there are some critical periods where you really see people fall apart. They're coming in a new situation. They're transitioning. And all that old stuff just comes forward. It doesn't go away.
And so, again, at least it's my understanding that it's really going to be hard to lead a full life. And in particular, to build full relationships that are lasting, if there's not some understanding of life. of what you've been through for each of us around our own childhoods, you know, traumatic or not.
And for some people, they they can't bring it out into the light. It stays under the bed and it really changes everything. you know, some of the ways that they probably could, you know, build, in particular, it's about building long-term relationships and attachments.
And then, you know, then you think of having your own children, you know, some of the most important people out there for us to be attached to and care for and
And support to be adults. And so I would have trouble thinking that she's going to have a very good life. I mean, my concern is that the same way with some of, again, the other victims, about 10% of the children in our study, and the number was so low because these were all cases involved in the court already, the children went back to their mothers without any support. oversight or treatment.
And those are the children who did the worst.
Exactly. It, You know, it's this is, I think, so important that I just did several months ago a piece at Boston Children's Hospital where I now work with the child protection team because they kind of wanted to say, what do we do when we get past the diagnosis? And I wanted to talk about setting up.
visitation and access immediately because if the child's in the hospital, that all gets negotiated with child protection where the child's in the hospital and it's really important. So part of the question for me, even with those children when they're diagnosed is how much access are they going to continue to have And how is this going to be managed?
And, you know, having worked in the child abuse field for a long time, I never thought I would hear myself say parental rights need to be terminated. I mean, I saw lots of battered child syndrome cases, both juvenile and sometimes in criminal court. And, you know, there clearly are times when parents should not be parenting their children.
But in these cases, I don't know what the other alternative is if these perpetrators are not able to modify their behavior. And even those who were the most willing to be in treatment needed to have the court fence surround them.
In order to follow through, particularly initially, even though they made confessions They never were full confessions at first. It took some time to hear more.
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