Abducted Teen Will Need Time and Help, Experts Say
CHICAGO _ When 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck was found, four years after vanishing from his Missouri hometown, he was quickly reunited with his mother and stepfather.
But for Shawn and his family, true reintegration will take much longer, experts said this week.
“This is going to take some very skilled clinicians,” said Dr. Lenore Terr, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco who has spent four decades studying the effects of traumatic experiences on children. “We don’t know what this kid has gone through.”
Psychologists said Shawn’s healthy physical appearance at a recent news conference provides little reassurance.
“You can’t go by outward appearances,” said Dr. Louis Kraus, head of child and adolescent psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “He’ll require a wrap-around program … a team of family, community, school and mental health professionals. No matter how he looks, this is not going to be a quick fix.”
While stressing they are not directly involved in the case, mental health professionals agreed that how well Shawn adapts to his new life will depend largely on the quality and quantity of services he receives, as well as the time and space he is allowed to mourn the past.
In announcing that pizzeria worker Michael Devlin had been charged with Shawn’s kidnapping, investigators stressed Wednesday that they are being careful not to push Shawn too hard.
“Give Shawn some time and proceed through this thing slowly,” said Washington County Sheriff Kevin Schroeder. “He’s been away from his family 4 { years. We’ve got to give him some time to rejoin that family unit.”
As late as the 1970s, experts believed that children were too immature to be affected by traumatic events. After a group of California schoolchildren was kidnapped and held captive underground in 1976, they were examined by a pediatrician after their rescue, but not by psychiatrists or psychologists.
Terr followed the children through the next 20 years, documenting nightmares, compulsions and other deleterious effects. Her research has shaped the way adults approach kids who have witnessed frightening events, from classroom shootings to the World Trade Center bombings.
The desire to move on after a trauma is very strong, but healing can’t be rushed, Terr said. “He will need someone very patient and very sweet, who will listen to the horrors until their child comes to look at the world in a less horrific way.”
Experts noted the boy was gone for a remarkably long time _ more than 1,500 days _ meaning he left as an 11-year-old and returned as a gangly teen in a different stage of life.
Family members and therapists shouldn’t force him to divulge details too soon, said Calvin Frederick, a retired psychiatry professor at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine who studied post-traumatic stress disorder.
“There’s a window of opportunity when certain information should be faced … but you can’t bring it up until the timing is right,” said Frederick, suggesting that the boy might meet with a therapist over a non-threatening game of checkers or watching sports on TV.
“From there, you could move to injuries … and then gradually work into it. If he starts shutting down, then you just back off. He shouldn’t have to talk directly about the case if he doesn’t want to. … His family will need to be very, very patient.”
Shawn’s case has been compared to that of Elizabeth Smart, the Utah girl taken from her bedroom in 2002 by a religious zealot to be the first of seven wives. Afterward her family did not ask her for specifics, her father has said.
“She did what she had to do to stay alive,” he said in previous news accounts. (Smart, who was gone nine months, is currently a music major at Brigham Young University).
As Shawn gradually returns to his prior life, education will be another tricky issue. Shawn has been away from the classroom since the 6th grade. Should he be home-schooled? Should he take classes with younger students or a class for learning-disabled kids?
Said Terr: “If I were his parents, I’d go out and hire every good teacher in St. Louis I could find.”
On the plus side, said Charles Figley, a professor of social work and director of the traumatology institute at Florida State University, youngsters are “amazingly resilient” and Shawn’s long-term prognosis could surprise people.
“He’ll go forward with the knowledge that nothing else he faces in life will be this stressful,” Figley said. “We have every reason to believe he is a real survivor.”
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