Nursing Department, Faculty of Health and Caring Professions, University of West Attica, Aigaleo, Greece.
Psychiatric Hospital of Attica, Athens, Greece.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2023;1425:105-117. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-31986-0_10.
Addiction has a devastating impact in the lives of millions of people worldwide. Mothers constitute a hidden population. Previous research did not focus on mothers' experience of recovery.
An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyze the experiences of 10 mothers whose young adult son/or daughter was in recovery from addiction.
Four themes delineated mothers' lived experience of the long journey from traumatic loss and isolation to traumatic growth and connection: (a) Trauma and despair. Loss of relationships and healthy family life, (b) coping strategies, (c) finding meaning and constructing a new identity, and (d) connection and gratitude. Overall, halting the descent into despair involved a perceptual shift that restored meaning, relationships, and hope and alleviated mothers' feelings of chronic grief and distress over their adult child's addiction problems.
Addiction can have a damaging traumatic impact on mothers which is enhanced by social and self-stigmatizing processes. Ambiguous loss can occur when one's child uses substances, as the child may be physically present yet be psychologically absent in terms of the mother (and the family). Understanding the experience of mothers may help health and social care professionals to develop compassion, patience, and empathy towards mothers of persons with addiction problems. Mental health professionals need to be aware of the devastating impact of addiction problems on all family members in order to validate their experiences and support them in recovering from trauma and loss in the family.
成瘾对全球数百万人的生活造成了毁灭性的影响。母亲是一个隐藏的群体。之前的研究并没有关注母亲康复的经历。
采用解释性现象学分析方法，对 10 位年轻成年子女正在戒瘾的母亲的经历进行了分析。
四个主题描绘了母亲从创伤性丧失和孤立到创伤性成长和联系的漫长旅程中的生活体验：（a）创伤和绝望。失去人际关系和健康的家庭生活，（b）应对策略，（c）寻找意义和构建新身份，以及（d）联系和感激。总的来说，阻止陷入绝望涉及到一种感知转变，这种转变恢复了意义、关系和希望，减轻了母亲对成年子女成瘾问题的慢性悲伤和痛苦。
成瘾会对母亲造成破坏性的创伤影响，社会和自我污名化过程会加剧这种影响。当孩子使用药物时，可能会发生模糊性丧失，因为孩子可能在身体上存在，但在心理上（和家庭中）却不存在。了解母亲的经历可以帮助卫生和社会保健专业人员对有成瘾问题的母亲产生同情、耐心和同理心。精神卫生专业人员需要意识到成瘾问题对所有家庭成员的毁灭性影响，以便验证他们的经历，并在家庭中从创伤和丧失中恢复过来。
