In the Face of Socio-Political Conflict: Mothers’ Experiences of Hope Alongside Adult Children with Mental Illnesses

• Author / Creator

  Redlich Amirav, Dorit

• This study aimed to explore hope experiences among mothers living alongside adult children with mental illnesses in a socio-political conflict area.
  Hope is increasingly recognized as an important factor for people facing difficult situations. Mothers whose adult children struggle with mental illness carry heavy burdens which are especially challenging to hope. Those burdens may be exaggerated in socio-political conflict areas. To date, the mothers’ experiences of hope have been, for the most part, unexplored, not understood, and largely unknown.
  A qualitative methodology, based on Polkinghorne’s (1995) framework of narrative inquiry, guided the study. Two Palestinian and two Israeli mothers were recruited from community mental health centers and hostels in Jerusalem. Tape-recorded conversations, hope collages, and field notes were used as the main sources of data for each mother and were gathered over the course of 4 months. To ensure credibility, narratives were negotiated through ongoing conversations and in follow-up meetings with each mother. Common themes were then constructed within and across the mothers’ accounts.
  Five themes were identified: (1) socio-political conflict markedly threatened experiences of hope, (2) mental illness in a family member challenged hope, (3) hope was a process in motion, (4) hope reverberated through generations, and (5) hope was experienced by doing occupations in a spiritual way.
  Living in a conflict area threatened hope for the mothers. What inspired them to continue hoping was doing occupations in a spiritual way and recalling past hope experiences that were then transmitted to their children. The mothers expressed experiences of hope in implicit and explicit ways that allowed them to move forward and gave them a sense of possibility amidst the uncertainty of their lives.
  The thesis includes discussions about implications for future hope research and practice in occupational therapy, mental health, and rehabilitation in conflict areas.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Mental Illness
  • Socio-Political Conflict
  • Qualitative Research
  • Hope

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3639KN0Q

• License

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