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Family-of-Origin Issues and the Generation of Childhood Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Kasia Kozlowska
Kasia Kozlowska*
Affiliation:
The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, The Brain Dynamics Centre, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, and the University of Sydney, [email protected]
*
*Address for correspondence: Kasia Kozlowska, Psychological Medicine, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Locked Bag 4001, Westmead, NSW 2145, Australia.
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Abstract

Unresolved family-of-origin issues can play a powerful but covert role in here-and-now family interactions, and can contribute to the generation and maintenance of childhood psychopathology and illness behaviour. This article describes an intervention with a family where the children frequently presented to local health services with a baffling array of psychological and somatic symptoms. The therapist was unable to pinpoint where the problem lay. In a final effort to understand family functioning she used the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) in order to better understand parental state of mind and how parental anxieties and behaviours contributed to current family functioning. This information was used to plan a treatment intervention.

Keywords

Functional formulationDynamic Maturation Model of attachment (DMM)medically unexplained symptoms
Type
Articles
Information
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , 01 March 2010 , pp. 73 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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