Bonding Therapy for Asthma

By Elizabeth West
Web Exclusive - March 24, 2009

I have to admit that when I first heard about Maternal Infant Bonding (MIB) therapy for pediatric asthma, my expectations were modest at best. We'd tried a number of different approaches for controlling our daughter's asthma, but nothing helped much. After experimenting with homeopathy, changes in diet, and various sorts of energy work, including reiki, we turned with some reluctance to allopathic medicine.

The inhalers her doctor prescribed did keep us from frantic trips to the emergency room and eased her discomfort in the night. However, she was still up many times every night, coughing and tossing and turning, struggling to find a position that allowed her to breathe more easily. And, of course, this meant that she was tired, cranky, and unfocused during the daytime. Her immune system was in shambles. She was the kid with the chronically runny nose, the one who has that telltale shine on the upper lip in every photo.

We adopted Cybéle when she was five-months-old. Her breathing difficulties were apparent from the start. Asthma was diagnosed when she was two-years-old, and it just got worse as she got older. By the time she was three-and-a-half-years-old, we had abandoned hope that we could manage her asthma without Western medicine. By the time she was four-years-old, I was ready to ask her pediatrician to prescribe oral medication in addition to the inhaled bronchodilator and corticosteroid medications she had come to rely on.

Feeling frustrated and helpless, I vented to a friend who had navigated many complex health and emotional issues with her own child. She told me about a man named Tony Madrid, a psychologist with whom she had worked to repair her bond with her son. Apparently, the therapeutic process he used to heal broken bonding was having amazing results for kids with asthma.

I had no concerns about my bond with Cybéle. We were as close as could be, and I couldn't imagine loving her more. I didn't understand why the process might work on asthma, but after talking with Dr. Madrid on the phone, I realized we had nothing to lose. It would, at most, take three sessions, and if there was even a small chance we could ameliorate her symptoms to avoid taking systemic steroids, then it would be worth the time and money.

A few weeks later, I was sitting across from Tony Madrid in his pleasantly cluttered office. Sunlight filtered through the surrounding redwoods and poured into the room. His dog slept peacefully on the extra chair. An energized man in his mid-sixties, Tony had, I noticed, the kindest eyes I'd ever seen. I felt a little more optimistic.

He took a brief history, and then we got right to work. The first step was to hypnotize me. I had never been hypnotized before and was quite curious to learn how it would feel. As a long-time meditator, I wondered about entering an altered state at someone else's direction. Tony asked that I hold a pencil and gaze at its tip while he spoke softly to help me relax. Within a couple of minutes the pencil fell from my grasp, as I had been told it would. My eyes closed gently. I was fully conscious and thinking with surprising clarity. In truth, I usually go a lot deeper every morning when I sit to meditate, and it was hard to believe that much could come from such a lightly altered state of consciousness. What I didn't understand at the time was that my unconscious mind was fully accessed and engaged. That was where the work was to be done, and the fact that I remained connected with my conscious mind didn't interfere.

Once I was under as far as I was apparently going to go, Tony began to take me through the creation of a new experience of my daughter's gestation and birth, all in my unconscious mind. He started with, "Imagine that you have just learned you are pregnant. You are filled with anticipation and joy. You feel the beginnings of a new life growing inside you. Let yourself experience a healthy and happy first trimester, and when that feels complete, your index finger will float." I'm well practiced at visualization, so although I had never been pregnant before, this was pretty easy. The part about my index finger floating was harder to credit. But once I felt really connected to the idea of finishing the first trimester, my index finger twitched and then floated, seemingly of its own accord. At his direction, I proceeded to imagine the pregnancy, stage by stage, until it was time to give birth.

"Cybéle is ready to be born, and you are ready to receive her as she comes into the world. You have a quick and effortless delivery, and your baby is laid on your chest. You hold her and you look into each other's eyes, recognizing each other at once. When this feels complete, your index finger will float." Tears were streaming down my cheeks while my finger floated. I had never experienced this moment in life, and it felt indescribably precious and beautiful. When I arrived for my appointment, I could not have conceived of loving her more than I did. As I sat there, hypnotized, imagining that I was holding her and preparing to nurse for the first time, I felt my heart just break open. For the first time, I experienced the full impact of the biological bond with my daughter. For the first time, I felt like a mama tiger, ready to kill or die for her if necessary. There really was no separation between us. My unconscious mind had truly accepted a new version of events and telegraphed it throughout my being.