The experience of undergoing high tech treatments for haematological malignancies affects not only the patient, but the entire family. For parents, the news that their child has been diagnosed with a life threatening condition such as cancer is a devastating event that will have an impact on the quality of the rest of their lives. It is now known that parents undergo reactions of shock and generalised alarm upon receiving their child’s diagnosis (Magni et al., 1986) and that this is the ‘hardest blow’ parents face throughout the ordeal of the illness (Binger et al., 1969; Koocher & O’Malley, 1981; Lewis & La Barbera, 1983; Powazek et al., 1980). Early work in this area is only beginning to describe the depth and breadth of this impact.