Denial of Parental Illness and Maintenance of Familial Homeostasis*

The aging family re‐enacts the pattern of family behavior during the illness of a parent just as, in the youth of the family, they were trained by the parent. The aid sought by the family from the professional worker is not that of counselling, but of corroboration and continuation of existing family values. The premature death wish of the family for the ill aged parent is a reflection of similar feelings within the family prior to the parental illness and impending death. The crisis of parental illness does not substantially alter family patterns of behavior. However, family maladaptive processes, including the denial and distortion of reality regarding the parental illness, constitute a defense mechanism. This defense presumably is for the preservation of a long‐standing pattern of family homeostasis, whether normative or pathologic.