Liz Randolph, MSN, PhD began her professional career in 1974, while she was still an undergraduate student in nursing. She was working two days a week in a school for psychotic children under the age of 6, and got her first exposure to working with severely emotionally disturbed children, and autistic children while there. She earned her BS in Nursing in 1975, became a registered nurse (RN) in 1975, and was licensed as an RN until 1996. In 1976 she earned her BA in psychology. Both of these degrees were earned at the University of San Francisco. In 1979 she obtained her MS in Nursing degree (MSN) at the University of California, San Francisco, and was granted the status of a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Child Psychiatry (there was no license for this professional status at that time). She later became licensed as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse, and was licensed in this capacity from 1986 until 1996. She worked as an RN in a child/adolescent in-patient psychiatric unit from 1975 until 1977, and in a day treatment program for severely disturbed adolescents from 1979 until 1983 (from 1977 until 1979 she worked as an RN in a newborn intensive care unit, caring for sick and premature babies). Dr. Randolph was licensed as a Marriage, Family and Child Counselor (MFCC) from 1983 until 1996, and in 1983 she began her private practice as a child and family therapist, specializing in treating families with behavior problem children. She became the founder and clinical director of the North Valley Family Therapy Institute in rural northern California after earning her PhD in Family Clinical Psychology in 1989 from the California Graduate School for Family Psychology, which is now the American School of Professional Psychology.

From 1993 until 1996 she was a licensed Psychologist, and worked as a forensic psychologist and neuropsychologist, as well as her on-going work as a family therapist with behavior problem children and adolescents, and also provided child custody mediation. She became the clinical director of a treatment program for victims of child sexual abuse, and for adolescent sex offenders in 1992. During these years she also served as an adjunct faculty member at Chapman College, Yuba College, the University of San Francisco, California State University at Dominguez Hills, and the American School of Professional Psychology, teaching psychology, first aid, health, and nursing courses to undergraduate students; and child development, child therapy, statistics, research, psychological assessment, and family therapy courses to graduate students. In 1991 Dr. Randolph first began to learn about Attachment Disorder (AD) when she attended a workshop with Foster Cline, MD, and she spent the next three years learning how to become an attachment therapist by obtaining training from four other experienced attachment therapists. As a result of these training experiences, and her work as a private practitioner, she published the booklet AChildren Who Shock and Surprise: A Guide to Attachment Disorders@ in 1994. She also discovered that virtually no research had ever been conducted on AD, nor was there a standardized test to assess and diagnose AD. She quickly became one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of AD, and began publishing her research results in this field in 1995. She developed the Randolph Attachment Disorder Questionnaire (RADQ) during the early 1990's, and this test was published in 1996 (for more information about the RADQ, or to obtain the RADQ, contact the Institute for Attachment and Child Development [IACD; formerly the Attachment Center at Evergreen] at 303-674-1910). In 2000 she published the booklet ADoes Attachment Therapy Work? The Results of Three Follow-Up Studies@(also available from IACD), and in 2001 she published the booklet AResearching Attachment Disorder@, which includes a summary of all of the research that had been conducted on AD and on the effectiveness of intensive attachment and trauma resolution therapies that was available at that time. This booklet can be obtained from RFR Publications.

During the early 1990's Dr. Randolph’s life branched out into several other directions as well. In 1995 she became a licensed minister, and began to expand her practice to include pastoral counseling, and in 1996 she became an Integrated Awareness7 (IA) Teacher (an approach to teaching others how to access and utilize their innate self-healing abilities). She moved to CO in the summer of 1996 to put her new skills into practice, and to establish a healing center with a friend from the IA community. She also began to study the impact that traumatization has on the neurological and physiological development and functioning of children, and to research ways to assess for neurological immaturity and impairment in traumatized children. This led her to the study of neurodevelopmental work (how movement, or the lack of movement, impacts upon brain and child development), and in 1998 she became a Neurodevelopmental Specialist after receiving additional training in this field while living in Utah for three years. She then moved back to CO in 2002, and her research in this field led to the development of the test AThe Movement Assessment of Neurological Immaturity and Impairment (the MANII)@, which was published in 2002, and which is available from RFR Publications.

As Dr. Randolph continued to work with traumatized children and their families in the late 1990's, she began to encounter increasing numbers of children diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder, and she began to research this disorder. She also began to work on developing a test to assess what has come to be known as Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder (COBD), as there was no standardized test to assess for and diagnose COBD. She was able to complete this research during the early 2000's, and published the AChildhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder (COBD) Screening Test@ (the CST) in 2003. As the understanding of COBD has changed over the years (the American Psychiatric Association and the National Institutes for Mental Health now recommend that this disorder be diagnosed as a AMood Disorder NOS@), the title of this test has changed, and it is now known as the AChildren’s Behavior Disorders Test@, or CBDT, as it assesses for ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Attachment Disorder, Mood Disorder NOS, Conduct Disorder, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, which are all of the behavior disorders that can present themselves during childhood. It has the sub-title of the AChildhood Bipolar Disorder Test@, and is available from RFR Publications.

Dr. Randolph is continuing to research both AD and COBD, the effectiveness of trauma resolution therapy in treating the behavior problems of traumatized children, how to assess for psychosis in traumatized children and children with Mood Disorder NOS, and the uses of Neurodevelopmental therapy in stimulating brain development in traumatized children. She published the book AParenting Traumatized Children: The Parents Book on Attachment Disorders@ in 2005, and is proud to announce the publication of her latest test that assesses for AD (and the first researched and standardized test for AD that children complete themselves), AThe Children’s Attachment Attitudes and Behaviors Scale@ (CAABS). Both the book and the test are now available from RFR Publications, as is the videotape/DVD AParenting Traumatized Children@, which is a 3-hour long workshop that Dr. Randolph taught on this topic in Wichita, KS in 2006. Also available from RFR Publications is the videotape ADifferential Diagnosis of Behavior Problems in Severely Traumatized Children@, which is a 6-hour long workshop that Dr. Randolph taught on this topic in Grand Island, NE in 2006. You can obtain additional information on all of the items that are available from RFR Publications by clicking on the Products icon on the home page for this website.

Dr. Randolph’s research has led her to develop an entirely new understanding of the causes and symptoms of AD; the trauma resolution approach. She teaches workshops on this topic, as well as on the differential diagnosis of behavior problems in traumatized children, on parenting traumatized children, on the diagnosis and treatment of Mood Disorder NOS, and on how to assess and treat neurological immaturity and impairment using neurodevelopmental therapy all over the country. She is a popular and entertaining presenter, and very much enjoys teaching others about her research and her approach to working with traumatized children and their families. Dr. Randolph has also been a foster parent to two children with AD, has provided therapeutic respite for families with children who have AD, and has taught numerous parents how to have more fun when parenting traumatized children. Because of Dr. Randolph’s reputation as a researcher, she helps a number of graduate students across the country with their theses and dissertations on topics related to AD, Mood Disorder NOS, and Neurodevelopmental work. In her spare time, she has enjoyed tap dancing, playing senior sports, sailing, and umpiring Little League baseball.

In 2007 Dr. Randolph became disabled by a head injury after falling head-first down a flight of stairs, and slamming into a wall at the bottom of the stairs. This unfortunate injury has brought her research efforts to a halt, as well as her ability to provide respite care for children. She is hoping to recover her functioning sufficiently to eventually be able to teach workshops again, so those readers who are interested in having her teach a workshop should stay in contact with her by e-mail periodically to determine when she is able to teach again.

Ever since Dr. Randolph’s research on the effectiveness of intensive attachment therapy was published, there have been several people who have tried to attack her and her research, usually through innuendo and misstatements of the facts, but sometimes through frankly libelous and/or slanderous statements about her, as these people want to have attachment therapy banned, and want clinicians who use attachment therapy to lose their licenses. Failing in their efforts to attack Dr. Randolph’s research (because this research was ethically conducted according to the standards of the American Psychological Association), they have resorted to attacking her, both professionally and personally. They have posted a great deal of incorrect, misleading, and libelous information about Dr. Randolph, as well as about anyone who is a member of the Association for Training and Treatment in the Attachment of Children (ATTACh), and/or who provides treatment to children with Attachment Disorder on a number of different websites. Any information that’s posted by Linda Rosa, Larry Sannar, and their colleagues on a variety of websites is highly likely to be false, quite misleading, and sometimes openly libelous, and not just about Dr. Randolph. Several of these websites have been shut down due to their misleading and libelous information. Since there are no requirements that information that is posted on a website be checked by anyone to ensure that it is accurate (kind of like when you read the National Enquirer@), you need to use your best judgement about accepting that any of this information is actually true. For more information about this false and misleading information, co9ntact Dr. Randolph at eaglesfeet@aol.com, or call her at 303-670-8723.