(Excerpt from a presentation at the ICCCPO/SIOP conference 2005 in Vancouver)

Clinicians have avoided addressing the power of love in the healing process. It isn’t discussed in literature, textbooks or treatment protocols. Yet we know it plays a significant role in the process of coping and healing. Being loved and loving is hard-wired into humans as part of our evolution, and is a remarkable survival mechanism. Dr John Bowlby, famous for developing the theory of attachment between child and parent, called love the "pinnacle of evolution". Seeking and maintaining close contact provides security, and soothes distress and discomfort. Now we know it also quiets and soothes the nervous system thereby promoting healing.

I’d like to share some thoughts, observations and documentary vignettes about the extraordinary relationship between parents and children – a relationship that becomes even more extraordinary when together they go through the scaringly tough, demanding process of cancer treatment. The child-parent relationship has multiple facets, often with an unspoken, deep, intuitive knowledge of one another. The diagnosis and treatment of cancer with its inherent elements of stress, fear of the unknown and greater reliance on one another, can pull parent and child closer together, making their bond stronger and revealing potential for enormous growth and profound wisdom.  When the challenge is met, again and again, as treatment continues in its uneven path, the love bond and understanding between parent and child/teen grows deeper in its knowing, reliance and trust, becoming profound.

In a sense I’m talking about how love works in critical times. When someone you love is under threat, deep inner resources are called forth and our hearts open. We become acutely attuned to the other, sensing, observing closely in an effort to understand and determine how best to help. Through this open hearted compassion, the powerful energy of love creates a synergy – combined energies of both parent and child connecting one with the other – to create a life-sustaining, loving support. This synergy is what  provides the energy to get through the taxing times.

It’s hard to put words to the experience of loving a child, or for a child, loving mother or father and what happens when that love is tested through the crucible experience of the diagnosis of cancer.  Rather extraordinary experiences occur. The two documentaries No Fears No Tears (1986) and No Fears No Tears—13 Years Later (1998)

tell the stories of how eight children, when given the right kind of support by staff  and particularly by their parents, become astoundingly competent at  making it through the long line of needles, needles and needles. They develop skills in pain and anxiety management, often coached by their parents who themselves have become more skilled in helping their child through these procedures. I’ll mention a few vignettes:

In No Fears, No Tears (1986), Ann, six year old Lesley’s Mom, talks about how important it is for her to concentrate on what is happening to Lesley, to focus and fully be there with her during treatment. She describes how when a wave comes over her that she can’t let her concentration affect her own fears, “ and I say to myself, ‘If this little kid can handle it, then surely I can handle it for a few minutes!’ ”  By putting her own understandable and inevitable fears aside and being fully present for her child, Ann created a safe holding and loving environment in which Lesley could feel, count on and relax within, so that she could cope.

In another section of that documentary Nancy, mother to four-year old Pamela shows how she learned to use a hypnotic technique , The Magic Glove with her daughter for IV access for chemotherapy. She says: “I have to be aware in myself that this is going to work. If I were to approach it saying this isn’t going to work, it’s just dumb, then it won't work. I have to approach is saying this is going to work and I get in there with her!” Her focused concentration and clear intent is fundamental to the success of their team work. But it is her conviction and loving bond with her daughter that makes her throw herself into the teamwork ensuring that together they do succeed in getting through another Vincristine treatment without tears.

Parents know the world and inform, protect and guide their child.  The second documentary No Fears No Tears – 13 Years Later shows that this is only the first step. Thirteen years later when the many treatment cycles are over and the children have returned to their lives, we see them as mature beyond their years, competent, capable and articulate about their experiences, recalling memories of what worked and what didn’t – and the meaning they make of it all.  The loving, reliable and responsive bond between parent and child is woven throughout their stories. Kelsey at 3 years was angry at having to go through painful treatment, but at 16 teenage Kelsey says with insight and compassion that her Mom did her best, despite “never having had a child with cancer before.” The child/teen/ young adult then in reciprocity gives the perfect, ‘sweet just right’ support and love right back to the parent. Sometimes, when things are at their worst, parents attune to and empathize with their child and a capacity grows, enabling the child to become a well rounded human being and in turn to give back.

In an unexpected turn of events, about ten years after Lesley had completed her treatment, her mother Ann was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. We see Lesley, a few years later in the documentary No Fears, No Tears – 13 Years Later sitting with her mother Ann relating how worried and scared she was when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. No-one in the family knew better than Lesley what her mother needed and how to give it. She held her hand, sent energy to her mother and coached her through her treatment. Filled with emotion, Ann says that she now tells everyone that Lesley is her hero!

We can rarely fully answer why things happen the way they do, particularly when we ask the question: "Why did my child get cancer?" – but we do have a choice about how we approach this challenge and how we work together through it, recognizing that the loving attachment between parent and child is a source of  remarkable strength, resilience and resource in healing.
As Ann so wisely says – i’ts extraordinary how life works out!

Dr. Dr Leora Kuttner

Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics

Suite 204, 1089 W. Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6H 1E5, Canada

Email: Kuttner@sfu.ca

The video “No Fears no Tears – 13 Years Later: Children coping with pain” by Leora Kuttner (1998) can be ordered at C & W Bookstore (www.bookstore.cw.bc.ca) for the price of 49,95 CAD.$