Music therapy supports parent-infant attachments: In families affected by life threatening cancer

Abstract

This chapter discusses how music therapy can help parents and infants affected by cancer. One of the most profoundly distressing aspects for parents with cancer is imagining that they will not be around to see their children grow up. Parents with infants with life threatening conditions may be so consumed by their own distress, fear, and anticipatory grief that they find it difficult to respond to the comfort needs of their children. Music therapy offers a range of methods that support parent-infant connectedness and attachment; promoting healthy relating and providing comfort for the work of adjustment which follows. Music therapy allows the experience of helpful musical moments, strategies..