The power of love baffles the experts, but it works

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 11

The power of love baffles the experts, but it works

“If I talk to two youngsters for five minutes each,” says a children’s psychatrist at a busy London teaching hospital, “I can usually tell which one comes from the home where cuddles are the order of the day.”

’•Warm physical contact Is a vital ingredient for producing a balanced human being. But so many dads — and many mums, too — think that cuddling is soppy and unnecessary. I can never impress on them enough just how wrong they are.” Today psychologists are unanimous in urging us all to love each other a little more — and, just as important, to show it. The potent power of love still , has the experts baffled, but it regularly works mental and physical miracles. Here are just three from the casebook of a Harley Street children’s specialist: Case one concerned nine-year-old John, whose parents separated when he was four and who had spent most of his time with an assortment of relations. He could not read or write and was considered mentally retarded. Then his mother married again and had John to live with her. He got the love and affection he had missed for so long. Within a year he had improved so dramatically that he was able to return to a normal school. Case two invloved Caroline who at 12 had made three juvenile court appearances and had been threatened with an approved school. A psychiatrist discovered that the child was desperately jealous of her brother and considered him the family favourite. The mother was told and made a special effort to give Caroline more love and attention. Within months the child’s character had been transformed. She has been in no more trouble and her

school work has improved out of all recognition. Case three is the story of Roger, now nine, who until a year ago was constantly under hospital observation for a condition which made him weak and lethargic and often unable to go to school. When he moved into another class where the teacher gave him special attention, Roger magically improved. It seems that the previous teacher had failed to give

him any love and understanding and this had had a disastrous effect on his mental and physical condition. Recently he has not missed a day’s school, and is able to play games — something he could never do before. Communal cuddle But not only children need the mysterious powers of love. Dr Marc Hollander, a Philadelphia psychiatrist, maintains that many of us are suffering

from what he calls ’‘cuddle starvation”. Lack of a regular loving cuddle can, he says, make women chain-smoke, make them lonely and tense and, in extreme cases, even suicidal. “I know a family who make a point of having a communal cuddle every morning after breakfast,” Dr Hollander says. “Then everyone goes off to work or school in a much better frame of mind. “Everyone needs that physical warmth which means that somebody loves them. And if a child grows up with lots of cuddles, he or she is likely to become a much more balanced person than a child who is deprived of demonstrative love.” And just as important as a mother’s love in a child’s development is a dad’s. Another experienced psychiatrist says: “Men often feel that showing affection to growing sons is silly. So the boy reacts by becoming withdrawn or even secretive.

Continentals ’’But continental fathers have a habit of kissing and embracing their sons at any age. This is far healthier than the overreserved approach of so many of our dads. “If the family is used to showing a bit of love and emotion it will be easier for a teenager to turn to mum and dad for comfort in moments of crisis.” But dad needs a bit of loving, too. A recent London University social study into the effects of affection showed that the vast proportion of male motorists who came to grief in the morning rush-hour were those who had left home without a morning kiss and cuddle, s» A coincidence? “We are not saying this is why they crashed,” says the expert in charge of the study, “but it would seem to be more than mere coincidence!” “If I had two applicants for a job with equal qualifications and one was happily married and one was not,” says the personnel director of a major chemical company, “I would pick the one from the happy home. “A man who is going to have responsibility needs all the loving and care he can get.” Children respond Mrs Jean Kenworthy, a social worker specialising in problem children, is in no doubt just how miraculous the power of love can be. . “I have seen children who have spent their lives in homes and institutions open up like flowers when they get into the love and attention of an adoptive home,” she says. “There’s nothing like love to make a child’s character flourish and bloom. Without it, there’s always something missing — probably for life."