ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some work done in a research group on the impact of serious illness on the family. The group includes the authors' colleagues Barbara Dale and Jenny Altschuler, together with MSc and PhD students. It utilizes attachment theory and research data as a base from which to explore this issue of illness. The chapter explores how the security of family attachments may hinder or help in care of seriously ill or disabled members. It focuses on ill children rather than ill parents. Mary Main and her associates started a series of investigations that have shown that the coherence of narrative of parents about attachments as illustrated in their descriptions of their childhoods, predicts that they are more likely to have secure attachments to their children. The majority of parents who have had very traumatic childhoods have incoherent narrative styles, and have insecurely attached children.
