Discussion: Adolescent acting out when a parent has cancer

Abstract

9 Dr. Wellisch does us a service in providing examples of how stress on one family member impacts on others in the family--in this case, mothers who were victims of cancer and their adolescent children. He draws our attention to the role shifting in the family that results from such a trauma in a family particularly when a parent has been so severely affected. His six examples represent direct situational crises, and it is not surprising that the adolescent in each reacted by "acting out," the likely response of a youngster to anxiety. There is no question that a mental health practitioner may be helpful to a family at such a time, but we must also keep in mind the circumstance set forth by Dr. Wellisch that in all six cases the parents had been having difficulty with their adolescents before the trauma. The relationships were already disturbed. Any upheaval of such a nature as a life-threatening or a mutilating illness affects family roles. New demands are made on everyone, including the ill member. Almost everyone assumes some new functions. The crises such families undergo create stress but not necessarily psychological pathology. It is of some importance that families not be transformed into "patients" because they are under stress. Their ability to see themselves as "normally" upset by events and as needing to make transitional adjustments to changes in circumstances aids them to bear with the pain and to be less fearful of innovating to meet the challenge. This paper is about the possible effects on the adolescent when mother is seriously ill. In offering suggestions for intervention, Dr. Wellisch stresses the need for parents to be sensitized and to be made to understand their youngster's predicament. When the children's and parents' reactions have gone awry, the parents may not be able to empathize with their adolescent if their own experience and adjustment to the crisis is