Resistance Among Youths With Mental Illnesses in China in the Context of Parent–Child Relationships: The Integration of Modern and Postmodern Perspectives

Research has revealed an unprecedentedly high rate of various mental illnesses among Chinese youth, which indicates that it is of paramount importance to probe the psychological well-being of this population. For youth, having conflicts with their parents is considered to trigger mental health issues. During this process, parents may attempt to guide, influence, and control these young people, while the youth themselves may resist their parents to seek autonomy and develop their own competence. However, this study revealed a more complex and nuanced phenomenon, as the youth not only resisted their parents but also resisted the power of discourses, and their mental illnesses served as a reification of their resistance. To delineate this circumstance, the study adopts a qualitative paradigm, endorsing a novel theoretical stance that integrates resistance in modernism and postmodernism. A dyadic interview and analysis were conducted with 16 family pairs that involved youth aged 16-24 years during their treatment in an inpatient unit at a grade-A tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, China. Four main themes were identified: (a) resisting the beliefs that emphasize closeness, (b) resisting the discourse of education, (c) resisting the discourse of hardship tolerance, and (d) resisting the public belief in slenderness. The narratives of parents and youth highlight how youths' rebellions occur in daily interactions, where their resistance involves not only their parents but also elusive social powerfull.