Abstract
This study explores experiences of mothers in Sweden who care for their adult children suffering from severe mental illness. Using 15 interviews with mothers from 40 to 80 years old, the article examines how predominant professional knowledge and sanism constructs the mothers and their children as deviant and what counterstrategies the mothers develop as a response to these experiences of discrimination. The findings show that the mothers’ experiences are characterized by endless confrontations with negative attitudes and comments that have forced them to go through painful and prolonged processes of self-accusations for not having given enough love, care, support and help in different stages of their children's life. But the mothers’ experiences also reveal important aspects of changes over the life span. As the mothers are ageing, the relationship between them and their children becomes more reciprocal and the ill child may even take the role as family carer.
Highlights
As in the majority of advanced welfare states, the mental health care system in Sweden has shifted from in-hospital psychiatric care to community care with support from professional caregivers
We explore how discourses and practices of sanism, such as the priority of professional knowledge, the subordination of survival perspectives, prejudice and social distancing shape the everyday experiences of mothers of adult children suffering from severe mental illness (SMI)
The empirical basis of this paper consists of 15 in-depth interviews with mothers to adult children with SMI
Summary
As in the majority of advanced welfare states, the mental health care system in Sweden has shifted from in-hospital psychiatric care to community care with support from professional caregivers. Official statistics reflect this change in mental health care. From the end of the 1960s until the middle of the 1980s, in-hospital psychiatric beds in Sweden declined by 80% (SOU 1992), and from 1999 to 2009, in-hospital beds decreased by an additional 23% (National Board of Health and Welfare 2010) This huge transformation of the mental health care system has been motivated by an effort to support the independence and inclusion of mental health service users in society (Government Bill 1993/94).
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