Hold Me Tight Group Intervention for Parents of Children With Cancer

This present article reports on the experiences of parents of children with cancer who participated in an emotionally focused Hold Me Tight (HMT) group intervention. A purposive sample of 24 parents was recruited from 3-day HMT courses. Focus group conversations were conducted at the end of each course and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The 3-day HMT group intervention resulted in experiences that strengthened parents' personal well-being and couple resilience. Individual, couple, and family-related meanings emerged in these conversations. The subthemes of the individual-related meanings included identifying the need for self-exploration, enabling a new form of self-observation, increasing self-understanding, and improving personal well-being and resilience. The subthemes of the couple-related meanings were identifying and processing couple relationship dynamics, increasing understanding of relationship interactions, facilitating prevention and coping with challenging situations, and strengthening the mutual emotional connection. The subtheme of the family-related meanings was increasing understanding of family interactions. These results suggest the need for further research on HMT group interventions for this target population.