the time a child has been seen and diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, several different mental health, medical, and developmental conditions need to be treated. While more children are being diagnosed with RAD, most are first mis-diagnosed with other behavioral problems. Children diagnosed with RAD need to be in intensive therapy, and so should their caregivers. The confusing path to a diagnosis often leaves children and families suffering for longer periods of time. Harlow's contribution Harlow believed that the relationship between mother and child was created by the mother providing tactile comfort, meaning infants have a natural need to touch and cling to something for emotional support. Harry Harlow helped further research that contributed to the discovery of RAD. He believed, and his study results showed, that the bond between mother and child in the first few years of life is extremely important for the mental health and development of the child. The ideas that he put into the psychology field of study helped discover what we know as RAD today. Many children are misdiagnosed with RAD when they have other behavioral problems, and vice versa. Harlow's experiments gave psychologists experimental data for the causes and development of RAD, which helped reduce misdiagnosis. Criticism Many of Harlow's experiments are now considered unethical—in their nature as well as Harlow's descriptions of them—and they both contributed to heightened awareness of the treatment of laboratory animals, and helped propel the creation of today's ethics regulations. The monkeys in the experiment were deprived of maternal affection, potentially leading to what are now known as panic disorders. University of Washington professor Gene Sackett, one of Harlow's doctoral students, stated that Harlow's experiments provided the impetus for the animal liberation movement in the U.S. William Mason, another one of Harlow's students who continued conducting deprivation experiments after leaving Wisconsin, has said that Harlow "kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive. It's as if he sat down and said, 'I'm only going to be around another ten years. What I'd like to do, then, is leave a great big mess behind.' If that was his aim, he did a perfect job." Mason also published articles where he attempted to work through the issue between a scientist's wish to understand the natural