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21 - Talking with children and their understanding of mental illness

from Part V - Child-sensitive therapeutic interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2009

Alan Cooklin
Affiliation:
The Family Project, Camden & Islington Mental Health & Social Care Trust London, UK
Michael Göpfert
Affiliation:
Webb House Democratic Therapeutic Community, Crewe
Jeni Webster
Affiliation:
5 Boroughs Partnership, Warrington
Mary V. Seeman
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

Introduction

The title of this chapter highlights an important starting point for what follows. All children with mentally ill parents construct some form of understanding about changes they observe in their parents' behaviour. If professionals are to talk helpfully to a child about his parent's illness, the talk needs to be a dialogue or dialectic between the different knowledge and understanding of the child on one hand and the professional on the other. In other words, it is no use just ‘telling’ the child – the professional needs to try to find out how the child understands what has happened to his mother, father, brother or sister, to talk about how he has worked it out, and then to fit the professional's knowledge into the discussion.

What to talk to children about

In a study of 11–15-year-olds living with a depressed parent, Garley et al. (1997) found that the children particularly wanted discussions about the following four topics:

  1. Understanding the illness. This would include their own concerns, ideas about the cause of the illness in their parent, and access to information.

  2. How to recognize the signs of an impending illness.

  3. Issues to do with hospitalization.

  4. Advice about management of the illness. This would include ideas about coping with the effect of illness on themselves as well as on their parent, suggestions about what is helpful to the parent and recommendations for other children whose parents are suffering from similar problems.

Type
Chapter
Information
Parental Psychiatric Disorder
Distressed Parents and their Families
, pp. 292 - 305
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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References

Alderson, P. (1993). Children's Consent to Surgery. Buckingham: Open University Press
Aldridge, M. & Wood, J. (1998). Interviewing Children: A Guide for Child Care and Forensic Practitioners. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons
Cooklin, A. (1998). From the return of the repressed to dialectics: making connections through talking with children. Journal of Family Therapy, 20, 153–64Google Scholar
Cooklin, A. (2001). Eliciting children's thinking in families and family therapy. Family Process, 40, 293–312Google Scholar
Falkov, A. (1997). Solutions on the ground: A family mental health service. Proceedings of Michael Sieff (1997) Conference, Cumberland Lodge. Woking: Michael Sieff Foundation
Falkov, A. (1999). Addressing family needs when a parent is mentally ill. In Approaches to the Assessment of Need in Children's Services, ed. H. Wood & W. Rose. London: Jessica Kingsley
Garley, D., Gallop, R., Johnstone, N. & Pipitone, J. (1997). Children of the mentally ill: a qualitative focus group approach. Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health Nursing, 4, 97–103
Jones, D. P. H. & Ramchandani, P. (1999). Child Sexual Abuse – Informing Practice from Research. Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press and Department of Health
McKay, D. & Pollard, J. (1996). Community support networks in education and care settings. In Parental Psychiatric Disorder: Distressed Parents and their Families, ed. M. Göpfert, J. Webster & M. V. Seeman, pp. 152–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Oxford University Press (1973). Shorter Oxford Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. In Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Psychopathology, ed. J. Rolf, A. S. Masten, D. Cicchetti, K. H. Nuechterlein & S. Weintraub, pp. 181–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Yule, W. & Williams, R. M. (1990). Post-traumatic stress reactions in children. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 3, 279–95Google Scholar

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