Psychiatric Study of Parents of Children with Cyanotic Congenital Heart Disease
Gerald I. Rozansky M.D.1 and
Leonard M. Linde M.D.2
1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California
2 Division of Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90024
As a result of these sessions, the parents gained insight into their own psychological mechanisms. Knowledge of these reactions should be of help to the parents and to the pediatrician in handling families with children with cardiac disease. Parental adjustments, such as denial, have varied results in the doctor-patient relationship, from increased dependency and demandingness, to hostility and repeated inability to comprehend the efforts of the physician to give accurate diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic information. If the physician is unaware of these difficulties he may find it difficult in understanding some of the parent's behavior. With increased feelings of helplessness, the parents may either try to deny the illness or search for the omnipotent physician to care for their child and themselves. With this approach they can meet with only greater problems than they have in reality. Similar group sessions or individual discussion with the pediatrician might help parents become more conscious of their various defenses and feelings, even though painful, so that they might be fairer to themselves, their child, and the doctor.
