Coping with Parental Mental Illness – An Everyday Battle
Journal Title: INDIAN JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH - Year 2017, Vol 4, Issue 4
Abstract
Mental illness is referred to as a condition that tends to impact a person's thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis. Many children may grow up with a parent suffering from some mental health condition at some point of time in his/her life. Few of these children live with a parent who has severe psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Coping with the stress of parental psychiatric illness is often very challenging for children as such illness creates an inconsistent, unpredictable family environment and may seriously hamper the parenting abilities of the couple. Children of such parents, while battling every day with the disorder of their parent, often experience stress of caring for the ill parent and also responsibility of siblings. They may themselves experience an array of problems including difficulties in concentrating on studies, anxiety, fear of developing same illness, so on and so forth. However, despite of these difficulties, some of these children seem to be achieving extraordinary success in their lives. They not only are able to do well in academics,but also maintain their emotional health, develop and sustain good relationships and at times reach out to help other individuals suffering from similar conditions out of compassion. What factors could be underlying this healthy coping? Could it be accounted to the differences in personality, resilience or specific coping strategies used by them? The present paper is a humble attempt to find answers to these questions. The aim of the study is to develop an in-depth understanding of above mentioned and many other such factors. Hence the qualitative analysis has been used. Specific research method used is narrative analysis which includes interviews with some such children (adult children). The implications of the research can be found in individual as well as group counseling, schools, colleges and other mental health care facilities.
Authors and Affiliations
Vedavati Paranjape
Keywords
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- EP ID EP274947
- DOI 10.30877/IJMH.4.4.2017.367-375
- Views 83
- Downloads 0
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