title: Ghosts in the nursery: the secret thoughts of a sick child's parents.
abstract: Parents facing a child's illness is difficult, nearly unbearable. In addition to the fear for their child's wellbeing, medical tests--even the entire health care system--seems to intrude upon family life, interrupting the family routine, disrupting the ability to live a normal life, and sometimes reintroducing thoughts of unprocessed traumas from the parents' pasts. This paper will explore how a therapist can expose how deep personal secrets--rejection, disgrace, disappointment--and subsequent feelings of guilt and shame arise during these crises, propose how to work with parents, and assist parents in processing these secrets.
authors.forename: Hilit
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Erel-Brodsky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003219:Confidentiality; D006117:Grief; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D012059:Rejection, Psychology; D012752:Shame; D012803:Sick Role; D013850:Thinking; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology