Generally playgroups are a good idea. They allow youngsters the opportunity to play together and provide them with important socialisation experiences. Parents can benefit too from talking, swapping notes, and generally supporting each other. Many parents find that talking to other parents who have children the same age gives them confidence, as they realise that there are child-rearing issues and difficulties that seem common to all parents. Sometimes playgroups are organised to give the parents in turn a few hours to themselves. This can also be invaluable.

Parents must also be prepared for the hassles that are inevitable in playgroups. Often the children are at an age where they are still learning to play with other children. Some may resent no longer being the centre of attention, while many have not yet learned the idea of sharing. There will usually be arguments about possessions.

Some parents are competitive about the achievements of their offspring, and this can undermine the confidence of other parents. Be aware of this, and do not hesitate to seek the reassurance of your nurse or doctor if you have any concerns. It is important to remember that all young children are individuals and unique in their superior intelligence or accelerated development — it often just indicates a bragging parent. If you cannot tone down a parent’s boastful comments by discussion and gentle feedback, and if this continues to undermine your confidence, you may wish to switch to a different playgroup.

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“I just sort of became the chicken-soup type. I mean, I turned over my life to everyone else. My wife became a caretaker, and caretakers are not supposed to screw their patients.” This statement from a husband with multiple sclerosis illustrates the importance of sexual self-concept. Try to answer question two not in terms of skill or attractiveness but on the basis of “how” you are as a person when you are trying to be intimate. If you are experiencing disease, what has the disease process done to your relationship skills. Have you become more dependent, more aggressive, less assertive, more or less withdrawn? What has been the major impact of your illness on you as a person? How people experience disease and illness tells more about how they really are as persons than how they experience health.

I have my patients who are experiencing disease calculate their “N/S Quotient.” This is the balance between nurturance—taking care of someone else—and succorance—being taken care of by another person—that I discussed in Chapter Four. One of the most healing of human experiences, one of the healthiest things you can do, is to help somebody else. When you are sick, you must continue at some level to help others. How would you say your balance is? Do you still profit, even if you are sick, from all the good healing internal chemicals that come from the joy of supporting and helping someone else?

There have been research articles (not many) describing the impact of disease on sexuality. There have been very few articles about the impact of sexuality on disease, on sex as healer, on sexual shamanism. Maintaining and enhancing intimacy throughout the challenge of disease is not only possible but necessary for getting better. Remaining sexually active can actually slow some aging orocesses, protect the genitals to some degree from aging changes, and possibly offer a boost to your immune system. Research has clearly shown that immunoefficiency increases when you love and are loved.

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There is no question that Masters and Johnson made a significant and lasting contribution to “democratizing” sex. Their treatment program was for couples, and even though their sexual-response model was based on the individual, they treated couples with treatment teams, and saw marriage as much more than a natural state or convenience. They saw it as a challenge, a potential for pleasure and sexual satisfaction as well as companionship, a place where time could be better controlled. In my view, the most significant contribution of Masters and Johnson was not their flawed sexual-response model, which modified the original Ellis model. Their contribution was to focus on a system, an interaction. They were a team, a man-and-woman team, and that allowed the feminist balance so lacking in the first two perspectives. They started the systerns approach to sex that I emphasize in the super marital sex perspective.

*101\97\8*

“I’ve never seen myself as particularly smart, I guess. Just about average,” said a husband. “I’d steer away from real bright people, people with book knowledge. I know my wife is much smarter than I am, but I offer her other things, like steadiness, reliability.”

Our selection of partner may not be determined by our perceived deficits, but you can see in this man’s description that specific areas of experienced inferiority can act themselves out within our relationships.

“I’m not beautiful, but I am smart,” reported one wife. “My husband is beautiful but not too bright. Together, we make a beautifully intelligent marriage.”

Think about your own deficit area on your love map and consider how this may influence your interaction with your spouse.

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The brain is a hive of electrical activity as the cells communicate with each other. An epileptic fit is like an electrical explosion, which sets off a chain of uncontrolled electrical activity. The triggering mechanism may arise in a scar in the brain tissue from an injury or an operation.

Almost all epileptics can have their disorder brought under control and most can lead normal lives, studying, working, marrying and having children. The greatest problem faced by most epileptics is the ignorance and fears of society.

A generalised fit is a frightening thing when seen for the first time. Few people know how to handle such an emergency and their ignorance and fear leads them to shun the sufferer.

Old prejudices die hard and epileptics are often thought to be mentally dull, unduly violent or anti-social. These generalisations are not true.

Many employers are hesitant to give jobs to those who have this disorder, yet their accident or absentee rate is no higher than others.

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*82/40/1*

This can be done with a special type of needle through the skin, under local anaesthetic. Because the liver moves up and down as you breathe, it is important to try hard to hold your breath when the doctor asks you to. Before doing a liver biopsy, your doctor should make quite sure that your blood can clot normally. If not, injections can be given to correct this. Even so, it is possible to bleed internally after a liver biopsy. This is unusual, but has to be watched for carefully. After the biopsy you will be kept lying still for some hours while the tiny hole in the liver seals over. During this time your pulse rate and blood pressure should be checked regularly. The main danger of bleeding is right after the biopsy. Sometimes transfusion is necessary. Very rarely, an operation is needed to stop the bleeding.

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The movements can include blinking, twitching of the nose or shrugging of the shoulders. Most of these habits spasms are minor and seem to disappear after several months.

However, in some children these tics are both severe and prolonged. They can involve grunting, throat-clearing and occasionally, uttering obscene words. Sometimes these children repeatedly touch themselves or others in the genital area or on the breast.

This bizarre behavior is extremely distressing to the child suffering from the problem and also to his parents. It is called the Tourette syndrome.

The cause is unknown, it is three times more common in boys than girls and there is some family tendency to it. Onset is usually before the age of 15.

Not all cases of mild habit spasms or tics can properly be labelled the Tourette syndrome, but those who have verbal spasms, particularly the uttering of obscene words, are diagnosed under this classification.

Sometimes children grow out of this, sometimes it persists. Fortunately one of the major tranquillising drugs, haloperidol, has proved of great value in treating this disorder.

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