Meaning of Parenting Experiences of Mothers with Mental Illness

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the meaning of child care experience of mothers with mental illness from the viewpoint of empowerment. A semi-structured separate interview was conducted with each of nine mothers with mental illness during an outpatient visit. We analyzed the interview data based on the analysis method of modified grounded theory approach. As a result, we generated twenty-five concepts which were grouped into nine categories: stability, thaw, resolution, deployment, outbreak, fluctuation, rigidness, depletion, and atrophy. Two major categories, “relation with mother’s reference point”, and “mother’s feeling” were extracted. And, as a core concept, “different child rearing compared with a normal, healthy mother” was also extracted. The phenomena represented by concepts and categories are summarized as “empowerment cycle” and “powerless cycle”. In conclusion, mothers with mental illness move back and forth between empowerment cycle and powerless cycle depending on the interpretation of “different parenting from a healthy mother”. Eventually these nine mothers were gradually empowered.