Making sense of the experience of being raised by a mother with mental health problems
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- Title
- Making sense of the experience of being raised by a mother with mental health problems
- Creator
- Christopher Hibberd
- Date
- 2017
- Abstract
- This dissertation addresses the emotional, relational and embodied impact on a child raised by a mother with severe mental health problems. Using Moustakas phenomenologically-orientated heuristic inquiry, its purpose is to help that child, now an adult, make sense of the anxiety and depression he has carried since those frightening childhood experiences. The work provides an understanding of the disturbing and destabilizing effects a mentally ill parents behaviour can have on their child, thereby providing the psychotherapy profession with an enhanced understanding of impaired parenting, its impact on children and resultant lifespan anxiety. Parenting and childhood, emotions and feelings, ideas of the self and feelings of loss, hope, grief and isolation are all covered, along with a broad consideration of the influence of the social and cultural background. Prominent findings, including the childs invalidation as a person, abandonment and engulfment, loneliness, anxiety, fear and moments of panic, and lifelong search for the unconditional love of a mother, are all explored in depth for their meanings to him now. The whole approach is underpinned by repeated description of the experiences that emerged and evolved during the inquiry. Explicit interpretation is deliberately excluded to allow the experiences to speak for themselves. The methodology is critically evaluated to highlight its epistemological strengths and weaknesses, and the findings are validated in relation to a critical review of relevant literature. Incidentally, that child is the author.
- Subject
- Psychotherapy and Counselling
- Extent
- 81 pages : illustrations
- Format
- Publisher
- Regent's University London
- degree
- MA in Psychotherapy and Counselling
- Language
- English
- Date Issued
- 2017
- Type
- Thesis & Dissertation
- Rights Holder
- Regent's University London & Christopher Hibberd
- Item sets
- Theses or Dissertation