The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

Chapter 4 centers on Laura, a four-year-old girl weighing only 26 pounds despite years of medical intervention. Her towering medical files documented countless tests, invasive procedures, and treatments as doctors unsuccessfully searched for a gastrointestinal explanation for her condition. When Perry was consulted, the treating psychologist informed Perry that he had discovered “infantile anorexia,” theorizing that Laura was secretly purging.

However, Perry’s investigation revealed that the childhood of Laura’s mother, Virginia, held the key to Laura’s condition. Abandoned at birth, Virginia had been subjected to the foster care system’s policy of moving children every six months to prevent attachment. Perry explains that this misguided approach was based on the belief that preventing bonds would make children easier to place permanently. Virginia moved between homes until age five, when she was taken in by loving Christian foster parents who provided stability and moral guidance. Although both Virginia and her foster parents wanted adoption, the state never terminated her biological parents’ rights. At 18, Virginia was forced to leave this stable home and sever contact with the family. She was placed in a halfway house, and soon became pregnant.

The authors explain that caring for children is neurobiologically rewarding because human infants are born extremely vulnerable and dependent.