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

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.