Who "Mothers" the Chronically Mentally Ill?

The purpose of this analysis is to explore how the shift to community residence and treatment has influenced mothers who care for their mentally ill young adult offspring. Home visits with clients and their families were used to gather interview, questionnaire, and observational data from 49 parents residing with a psychiatrically disabled child at the time of the latter's entry into a psychiatric rehabilitation program. Results indicated a high level of emotional distress on the part of both mothers and fathers. Mothers reported significantly higher degrees of anxiety, depression, fear, and emotional drain, even following the introduction of a series of control variables measuring parent's education, ethnicity, age, the illness length, and the offspring's gender. Application of a feminist analysis to these data suggests a theoretical and clinical approach based on understanding the meaning of the child's illness to mothers themselves, along with an awareness of what is involved in caring for severely mentally ill individuals. Such an approach may be used by clinicians to avoid well-documented tendencies in the psychotherapeutic professions toward mother-blaming and maternal scapegoating, and to formulate effective ways to support women and their families in caring for a mentally ill offspring.