Asthmatic Children, Bonding, and Hypnosis

Since the 1941 article of French and Alexander, suggesting that childhood asthma was the cry of the unloved child for his mother, researchers and clinicians have associated asthma with psychological problems in the mother, in the child, and in their relationship. The mothers have been categorized as distant (Turnbull, 1962), rejecting (Miller and Baruch, 1957; Gerard, 1953), engulfing (Garner & Wenar, 1959; French & Alexander, 1941), overprotective (Rogerson et al., 1935; French & Alexander, 1941), with conflicted dependency (Mohr & Richmond, 1954), and depressed (Klinnert et al., 2001). The children have been categorized as depressed (Jones et al., 1976; Klinnert et al., 2001), helpless (Fenichel, 1953), angry (Alcock, 1960; Dunbar, 1938), overly dependent (Alcock, 1960; Mansmann, 1974), and subservient (Neuhaus, 1958).

In looking at the relationship between mother and child, several authors claimed that the fear of being separated from the mother triggered asthma in the child (French & Alexander, 1941; Miller and Baruch, 1950; Dunbar, 1938; Hallowitz, 1953). Some noted that mothers of asthmatic children have felt ineffective in their parenting (Lindt & Goldman, 1961; Moher et al., 1963). Klinnert and associates (2001) found that asthma was associated with parenting difficulties observable from early infancy.

A series of studies from the Erickson Institute in Santa Rosa, California, have suggested that asthma is associated with disruptions in maternal-infant bonding. Feinberg (1988) found that bonding problems occurred in 87% of asthmatic children as compared to 24% of non-asthmatics. Schwartz (1988) showed 70% of mothers of asthmatics endorsed two or more events linked to non-bonding, as compared to 20% of non-asthmatics. Pennington (1991) found that early childhood separation and maternal emotional distress were highly associated with asthmatic children.

Maternal-Infant Bonding

The Erickson Institute studies used the concept of “maternal-infant bonding” as defined by Klaus and Kennell (1976). Maternal-infant bonding is depicted as the emotional, physical, and behavioral attachment which happens between a mother and her child, locking them together in a mutually satisfying, emotionally fulfilling way. Although many authors had previously claimed that bonding existed in humans, it was Klaus and Kennell who observed and documented that bonding can be interrupted or prevented by specific events. Two types of events usually interfere with bonding: (1) physical separation at birth and (2) emotional distractions at or about birth.

(1) Physical separation can occur in a number of ways: when a child is removed to an incubator, when a child is adopted, through the use of anesthesia at birth, at multiple births, when mothers are sick, when the child is ill at birth, or when any other event takes the child away from his mother after birth. The research is convincingly clear that children born under these circumstances can suffer negative consequences from separation: failure to thrive (Ambuel & Harris, 1963; Shaheen et al., 1968; Evans, 1972); shorter time breast feeding (DeChateau, 1976; Sous et al., 1974); lower IQs (Scarr-Salapatek & Williams, 1973; Barnard, 1973); higher infection rates (Klaus & Kennell, 1976); and higher rates of child abuse (Elmer & Gregg, 1967; Skinner & Castle, 1969; Klein & Stern, 1971; Oliver et al., 1974).

(2) Emotional distractions can occur when a mother is experiencing another emotion that is so strong that it is incompatible with bonding emotions. Klaus and Kennell (1976) write that the most common interfering emotion is grief endured from some serious loss, such as the death of a family member, separation or divorce, or a miscarriage. Other emotions that have been noted are intense fear, guilt associated with an unwanted pregnancy, and addiction (Madrid et al., 2001). Under these conditions, a mother can be suffering such intense distress that she can be blocked from the feelings of bonding. We suggest that mother-child difficulties, noted for decades by those who have studied pediatric asthma, are caused by bonding failures and that psychological problems noted in mothers and in children can also be the result of this lack of bonding. These bonding failures, in turn, can be traced to separation at birth or maternal emotional preoccupation. If this is the case, then it is conceivable that asthmatic symptoms may be improved by repairing the broken bond.

Repairing Bonding Problems to Correct Asthma

Indeed, childhood asthma symptoms seem to respond to a treatment which focuses on repairing the bonding problem through hypnosis. In a pilot study testing this hypothesis, six children all improved (Madrid et al., 2000). Two of the children were under the age of two. There was improvement in overt wheezing, need for medication, days absent from school, nights needing attention. The mothers all stated that their children’s overall health had improved as well. The remainder of this article will describe this therapy. There are three parts to this therapy: (1) identifying the impediment to bonding; (2) the use of hypnosis to remove the impediments to bonding; and (3) the use of hypnosis to “install” a new, bonded birth. As an example, if a baby was taken away from his mother immediately after birth and kept away for two days, the pain of that separation would be cleared from her; she then would be guided to experience a new birth in which her baby remained with her. For another example, if a mother became pregnant soon after her father’s death, the grief would be removed with hypnosis, and then she could be taken through a new birth, experiencing it joyfully.

For this type of therapy to work, one needs to detect if there was a bonding failure and what happened to create that bonding failure.

Maternal- Infant Bonding Impediments

The following check list has been helpful in identifying events, both physical and emotional, which typically interfere with bonding. Most of these are taken from Klaus and Kennell’s 1976 book, Maternal-infant bonding.

PHYSICAL SEPARATION

• Mother was separated from child at or after birth.
• Mother had a very difficult delivery.
• Child was sick at birth.
• Child was twin or triplet.
• Intensive care nursery or incubator.
• Mother was anesthetized at birth.
• Mother was very sick after the birth.
• Mother was separated from child in the first month.
• Child was adopted.
• Other separation occurred.

EMOTIONAL SEPARATION

• Mother had emotional problems during pregnancy.
• Mother had emotional problems after birth.
• Mother had a death in the family within two years of birth.
• Mother had a miscarriage within two years of birth.
• Mother and father were separated before birth or soon after.
• Mother was addicted to drugs or alcohol at birth.
• Mother moved before or soon after birth.
• Severe financial problems.
• Unwanted pregnancy.
• New romance in mother’s life.
• Other event which could have interfered with bonding.

If one or more of these events is endorsed by the mother, then the therapist can suspect that bonding did not occur and that the reason for non-bonding has been discovered. A therapist can get a fast indication if bonding occurred by asking the mother how she felt when she first saw or held her child. If she says something that is filled with positive emotion, like “I was thrilled,” then bonding probably did occur. If the mother says something noticeably devoid of emotion or full of negative emotion, like “I was frightened” or “I thought she was cute but I had no feelings,” or “I was exhausted and could hardly wait to go to sleep,” then probably bonding did not occur. The therapist needs then to find the reason for non-bonding, and the checklist can be a help.

Fixing the Impediment

It is helpful for the therapist to discuss the concept of maternal-infant bonding with the mother, encouraging her participation in this discussion. Often mothers have known that something has been wrong and have blamed themselves, or have been blamed by others, for the disturbance in their relationship with their child. When they hear that the trouble has been caused by circumstances outside of their control, they are greatly relieved. Their participation in the therapy is enhanced by such discussions.

When the bonding impediment is identified, the mother is hypnotized and asked to heal this interfering event (or events) as well as the memory of the feelings of this event. Simple hypnotic suggestions seem to accomplish this task. We use a general purpose suggestion coupled with an ideomotor signal (Cheek and LeCron, 1968) in this fashion: Resolve and heal the grief that you were experiencing during the pregnancy and all memories of the feelings during that time. And when that is all gone, then your index finger will float... Is there any more grief in you from that time? (If so, then she is asked to clear out the remaining grief.)

Discovering the key bonding impediment is essential. The therapist may work through several false impediments before the real impediment is identified and resolved. For example, a pregnant mother who was left by her husband, destitute and alone, reported that she had bonded with her son at birth. This was evident when she stated that she was ecstatic when she saw her son (and she was noticeably moved talking about it). In hypnosis, she also confirmed that this was not a big problem. However, her son’s first asthma attack occurred at one year of age, when the mother was physically assaulted on the street coming home from work. She suffered PTSD from the attack and was unable to stay connected to her son. It was clearly evident that this was the bonding inhibitor because her son went to the hospital within days of the attack.

Creating a New Birth History

After the impediments to bonding are removed, resolved, or healed (whatever metaphor or image works), a new birth needs to be created and felt by the mother. Under hypnosis, she is asked to imagine how the birth would have been, had there been no impediments. If a mother was grieving the death of her father at the time of her son’s birth, she is asked to know what it would have been like to have given birth in a joyful state. In the same manner, if a mother was anesthetized and unable to see her son for several hours after his birth, she is given the opportunity to hold her child after he was born.

The mother is asked to go through and confirm several stages in this hypnotic protocol. She is asked to go through her whole pregnancy: the first trimester of pregnancy in a healthy, joyful fashion with her unconscious mind signaling when that is accomplished. In a similar fashion she is brought through the remaining two trimesters. Then she is brought through an easy birth. She is asked to indicate through ideomotor signals when her child takes his first breath. She is instructed to spend the first hour with her child, with all the sensations involved. Then she is brought through the first day, the first week, and the first month, with hypnosis quickening the speed. She is brought through any time which formerly had impediments, right up to the present time. Finally, her unconscious mind is asked if it can take this history as a new emotional history, to keep in her heart to remember and enjoy.

If at any time there seems to be a difficulty in getting an ideomotor response indicating that a task has been accomplished, it usually means that the mother still has an issue that has not been resolved. She will need to return to the issue and do more clearing or learning about it before she can experience the birth in this resolved fashion.

This work usually can be done in two to three sessions: one session to gather the history and to introduce the mother to hypnosis, and one to two sessions to do the therapy. For cases involving older children, the children may need some hypnotic work themselves. Teenagers who are going through the developmentally appropriate separation and individuation process may have some issues that need to be explored. Furthermore, some children may have some conditioning or attitudes in place that need exploring and reconfiguring. Young children, however, seem to respond entirely to the work with only their mothers (Madrid et al., 2000).

Example #1:

A young mother got pregnant at the age of 14, the first time she had sex. The child’s father broke up with her in the second trimester and left the state. She had toxemia and was very sick throughout the pregnancy. Labor was induced in the eighth month. When she first saw her son, she remembered feeling overwhelmed and unready for the task, a strong indication of non-bonding. After she was released from the hospital, she lived with various family members until she landed with her great aunt. At the time of treatment her baby was 9 months old. She said that her child got seriously sick and was put on medication when he was four months old. She stated that her son had not been a healthy child since then and it seemed as if there was always something wrong with him.

She was seen four times—the first and second time for one hour and the third and fourth time for 20 minutes.

The first meeting was dedicated to gathering history and introducing her to hypnosis. At the second meeting she was asked to clean out the old painful memories and a new birth was created. She remarked that she felt wonderful imagining holding her son after he was born without being scared. Now she knew what it felt like. The child, however, did not improve after that session; in fact, he got worse with a cold. At the third session, she identified guilt as still impeding her connection and she cleared out the guilt about being pregnant at a young age. At the fourth meeting, two weeks later, she reported that her son was no longer wheezing and that she had discontinued the use of the nebulizer. He was no longer using any medication, and he was acting and looking like a healthy baby. Her son continued to be symptom-free at the last contact, nine months after treatment.

Example #2:

A 10-year-old girl was severely asthmatic, but she was kept stable using several types of medications. She was symptomatic during the springtime, when she had a cold, and whenever she exerted herself physically. Her mother conceived her six months after her first child died in an automobile accident. The mother was taken back in hypnosis to the time just before she conceived the 10-year-old and asked to remove all the grief that existed at that time. When she indicated that this was accomplished, she was asked to see what it was like to be pregnant with her daughter. She could experience joy with this girl throughout her pregnancy, and at birth, and afterwards. She was taken through these experiences step by step, and her unconscious mind was instructed to indicate, by ideomotor signals, when each of the tasks was achieved. Her unconscious mind was asked to keep these feelings and memories in her heart and to build on them. The mother phoned three days later saying that her daughter was playing soccer for the first time in her life and was totally symptom-free.

Example #3:

A seven-year-old girl was on a full complement of medications, including several courses of steroids yearly. Her mother reported that she had been in the emergency room at least once a month for the last year. She wheezed almost constantly. Her mother also reported that she did not feel any love for her daughter, although she knew that she should and that the daughter deserved it, and she was quite sad about this.

The story of the girl’s birth was filled with impediments to bonding. The husband left the family during the pregnancy, leaving the mother heartbroken. Her own mother was in the labor room berating her, and the labor room nurse was mean. Her doctor could not be present for the delivery and she was given a doctor whom she had not met before. When the baby was delivered, she was jaundiced and taken away from the mother for several hours. When the mother was ready to leave the hospital, the baby remained there because she was still jaundiced. When the mother returned to receive her baby several days later, she remembered feeling that the baby belonged more to the hospital nurses than to her.

The mother was hypnotized and the horrible birth history was cleared using a direct suggestion to do so. She accomplished this in two minutes. Then a new history was presented which included all the features that the mother wanted. Ideomotor signals indicated that everything was accomplished. When the unconscious mind was asked if it could accept this new history, it said “No.” The mother was brought out of hypnosis to discuss this. She said that she had put too many difficult years into this daughter and it was unrealistic to think that everything could be changed instantly. She was returned to hypnosis and asked if she could keep the original history on one side of a divided highway and this new history on the other side, using whichever side she wanted at any time. The unconscious mind, through ideomotor signals, said “Yes.” The mother reported that her daughter’s asthma disappeared that evening and did not return for several months, until the daughter was visiting her father. The mother told her ex-husband to bring the girl home, and as soon as he did so, the girl’s wheezing and constriction remitted and did not return.

Conclusion:

Pediatric asthma has been associated for decades with maternal-child difficulties. More recent studies point to disruptions in the bonding process as a key reason for these difficulties. Disruptions in the bonding process can also account for psychological problems in the child and mother, including depression, over-dependency, inability to express emotions, anger, and other characteristics attributed to each. The relationship between any of these psychological attributes and asthma can be understood by inserting “bonding problems” as the mediating variable. Klinnert and her associates (2001) point out that a particular type of stress brought about by parenting difficulties seems related to asthma. This type of stress may weaken the immune system and render the child susceptible to asthma. We suggest that this type of stress is brought about by a failure to bond and that this bonding failure is at the root of parenting difficulties and also leads to asthma.

It is interesting to note that when mothers are treated with bonding therapy, their children improve without any work on their parenting skills. It may be that parenting skills automatically improve as their connection with their children improves. Klaus and Kennell (1976) have noted that bonding can be interrupted if a child is sick and that worrying about a child with a temporary disorder may have long-lasting consequences. Xu and associates (2000) have shown that obstetrical complications and high Apgar scores were associated with a high risk of asthma. They recommend further exploration of possible mechanisms underlying this association. We offer that obstetrical problems and high Apgar scores are linked to bonding failures, which in turn lead to high stress in the child, and that results in asthma. We do not know the incidence of asthma within the population of children who are not bonded. We do know that non-bonded children comprise a large subset of all asthmatic children. From initial investigations, it seems that non-bonded asthmatic children can be helped by repairing the bond between mother and child.

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