CHILDREN WHO FEEL LOVED GROW TO BE HEALTHY ADULTS, STUDY FINDS.Byline: Kate McClare Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire Children who feel loved by their parents grow up to be both emotionally and physically healthy as adults, two researchers say. Linda Russek, a research psychologist from Boca Raton Boca Raton (bō`kə rətōn`), city (1990 pop. 61,492), Palm Beach co., SE Fla., on the Atlantic; inc. 1925. Boca Raton is a popular resort and retirement community that experienced significant industrial development in the 1970s and 80s. , Fla., and psychologist Gary Schwartz Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D., is a professor of Psychology teaching courses in psychology in the departments of Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University of Arizona. say they've found a connection between feelings of love in childhood and physical well-being in adulthood. They presented their findings last week in Williamsburg, Va., at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic psychosomatic /psy·cho·so·mat·ic/ (-sah-mat´ik) pertaining to the mind-body relationship; having bodily symptoms of psychic, emotional, or mental origin. psy·cho·so·mat·ic adj. 1. Society, an organization of medical and psychological professionals who study the relationship between the mind and body. Russek is a research associate at the University of Arizona (body, education) University of Arizona - The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. Department of Psychology, with a psychology practice in Boca Raton. Schwartz is a professor of psychology, neurology and psychiatry at the University of Arizona. They recently opened the Family Love and Peace Foundation in Tucson, Ariz., a nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. focusing on family love and health. Russek said she and Schwartz interviewed 87 Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. graduates who had participated in a 1954 Harvard study of how people cope with stress. Stanley King's original "Mastery of Stress Study" included asking participants whether they thought their parents cared about them, and subjecting them to physically and emotionally stressful incidents such as harassing them while they tried to solve arithmetic problems. Of the men who had first reported feeling unloved by their parents, 82 percent experienced major midlife mid·life n. See middle age. adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of middle age. illnesses such as heart disease, hypertension, ulcers and alcoholism. Such illnesses struck only 38 percent of the men who had reported feeling loved. Of those who reported lack of parental love and experienced extreme anxiety during the experiments, 94 percent contracted serious illness at midlife. Of those who rated their parents high in caring and did not feel anxiety, only 24 percent became ill. Russek stressed that the finding has to do with whether the men believed they were loved, not whether they really were loved. |
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