Chapter 4: Children’s Conceptions of Illness

In psychological, psychiatric, and pediatric literature of the past several decades, there has been considerable attention given to the psychological needs of the ill child. Until very recently, the major theoretical format for understanding and intervening in the behavior of sick children has been psychoanalysis. A number of studies, both clinical and empirical, have addressed children’s responses to illness and/or hospitalization in terms of the feelings of the child. The psychic and physical trauma experienced by the sick child were seen to result in feelings of fear, anger, anxiety, withdrawal, and depression. Thus, therapeutic interventions were best directed to the affective level—toward acknowledging and modifying these negative feelings.