The Normal Child with Disabled Parents: Mary

An increasing amount of psychotherapeutic work is being undertaken with physically and mentally disabled children and the literature in this area is usefully expanding. I should like to give some thought to the problem of handicap from the point of view of the normal child who is born to physically handicapped parents, an area that deserves some attention as disabled people are increasingly asserting their right to have children. In recent years two such children have come my way at the clinic where I work. The first was the child of deaf parents who could himself hear normally. He was described by his teacher as “one of the angriest children she had ever met”. My brief and fruitless contact with this boy was passed in an atmosphere of totally silent fury which I was barely able to break through. He quickly refused to come and so it was not possible even to start therapy.

I was naturally, then, interested when another child with disabled parents came my way and I began to wonder if there might be similarities and to think more generally about the problems such children might experience. The new case was a 9-year old girl I shall call Mary of the Green family. Her parents were both physically handicapped with partial paralysis.

Mary was officially referred for “anxiety symptoms”: she was pulling her eye-lashes out. This had first happened, it appeared, after mother had expressed some pleasure that she would have some “peace and quiet” when Mary was away at her Nan's. Mary was reported to have been distraught. It turned out that Mary had also once threatened to commit suicide and was very difficult to manage in the mornings using all sorts of delaying tactics about getting dressed and ready. In my initial interview with Mary and her mother it was this slowness in the morning and also stubbornness about homework which were the main complaints. The eye-lashes were only brought up when I asked. Mrs. Green made an interesting comment herself about Mary's approac