Can difficult parental relationships cause disease and premature death?
-
Dr. Dean Ornish answered:Did you come from a family where you want to reach out and touch someone? Or is long distance not only the next best thing to being there - it's even better? How can a relationship with parents decades earlier affect whether or not someone gets heart disease, cancer, or other causes of premature death and disability later in life? Does that mean a person who did not have an emotionally warm relationship with one or both parents or whose parents died early in life is doomed to early death and disease?
Not necessarily. We can't change what happened to us in our childhood or adolescence, but we do not need to do so. I believe that it is the ongoing pattern of relating to others that is most important, not a particular event that happened much earlier in life.
Did you come from a family where you want to reach out and touch someone? Or is long distance not only the next best thing to being there - it's even better? How can a relationship with parents decades earlier affect whether or not someone gets... More -
Arlene Feuerberg-Isaacs of TherapyLiveCare answered:Difficult parental relationships can be very stressful which can weaken our immune system thereby leaving us to be more vulnerable to disease. Therefore it is very important for us to learn how to manage our emotions and have new and more healthy relationships so that our immune systems will not be stressed and we will be less likely to have serious medical conditions.
Difficult parental relationships can be very stressful which can weaken our immune system thereby leaving us to be more vulnerable to disease. Therefore it is very important for us to learn how to manage our emotions and have new and more... More
